Rigid Contact Force Computation based on Contact Volume with Pyramidal Approximation of Frictional Constraint

Abstract

A novel method to compute contact forces based on contact volume with polygonal approximation of Coulomb's friction law in forward dynamics simulation is proposed. The contact forces applied in the volume is modeld as the resolutant 6-axis force of the distributed linear forces on the contact plane. The constraint condition on the 6-axis force derived from the unilateral and frictional constraint of each distributed forces is approximated to the linear programming problem with polygonal approximation.