JoeJ wrote:It would be nice if you add the fixed joint to one of the two robots, so we can try that quickly.
good point, request granted, if you sync, one of the two robot is now fixed to the sentinel body.
this is actually very good for writing the feature.
JoeJ wrote:I think of many such platforms. Something like 20-100. Each consisting of 3-4 bodies.
Do you think this makes sense considering performance?
I am not really worried about performance. as it stands I believe we are in the ball part with any engine while having a generic solve that handle joint, contacts indifferently.
JoeJ wrote:I could also implement this on my own using simple IK solvers and joint motors.
But i don't think that would be faster, and using your system this would be no work to implement.
yes this could be implemented with IK, and could be even faster, but it is not without problems.
for once, IK system will give you the position or angle, if you want any velocity changes you have to apply many tricks.
Ik can only agree with momentum based systems when the IK chain is a holonomic closed loop with a unique solution. ex the six dof robot.
this is not the case for over and under determined systems.
in these cases, the inverse dynamics is far superior because it consider the momentum and the masses distribution of the arrangement of bodes and joints.
you may think this is not a big deal, you only use closed holonomic systems, but that is in fact the exception of all cases. take for example a leg, on a humanoid body.
if you just consider the hip, leg, calf, and foot,
it is the same as the six dof Robot.
But when we consider leg connected to the hip alone with the other leg and the upper body, it is not longer a closed holonomic system. If it was, them every biped would walk exactly the same way, and as you know that is not the case.
finally, I do not want to deal with two different kinds of solutions. I want one that is generic enough and fix all.