Tiny Differentiable Simulator

Tiny Differentiable Simulator is a header-only C++ physics library with zero dependencies.

It currently implements various rigid-body dynamics algorithms, including forward and inverse dynamics, as well as contact models based on impulse-level LCP and force-based nonlinear spring-dampers. Actuator models for motors, servos, and Series-Elastic Actuator (SEA) dynamics are implemented.

The entire codebase is templatized so you can use forward- and reverse-mode automatic differentiation scalar types, such as CppAD, Stan Math fvar and ceres::Jet. The library can also be used with regular float or double precision values. Another option is to use the included fix-point integer math, that provide cross-platform deterministic computation.

Multiple visualizers are available, see below.

Bibtex

Please use the following reference to cite this research:

@inproceedings{Heiden_ICRA_2021,
  author =		 {Eric Heiden, David Millard, Erwin Coumans, Yizhou Sheng, Gaurav S. Sukhatme},
  year =		 {2021},
  title =		 {NeuralSim: Augmenting Differentiable Simulators with Neural Networks},
  booktitle =		 {Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
  url =		 {https://github.com/google-research/tiny-differentiable-simulator}
}

Getting started

The open-source version builds using CMake and requires a compiler with C++17 support.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make -j

Examples

For visualization, two options are supported:

OpenGL 3+ Visualization

tiny_opengl3_app, an OpenGL3 visualizer

This visualizer is native part of this library under src/visualizer/opengl

MeshCat Visualization

MeshCat, a web-based visualizer that uses WebGL

A C++ ZMQ interface is provided.

Before running the example, install python, pip and meshcat, run the meshcat-server and open the web browser (Chrome is recommended for a good three.js experience.)

pip install meshcat
meshcat-server --open
This should open Chrome at http://localhost:7000/static/
Then compile and run tiny_urdf_parser_meshcat_example in optimized/release build.

URDF files can be loaded using a provided parser based on TinyXML2.

All dependencies for meshcat visualization are included in third_party.

Disclaimer: This is not an official Google product.

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