Dynamics Computation of Structure-Varying Kinematic Chains and Its Application to Human Figures

This paper discusses the dynamics computation of structure-varying kinematic chains which imply mechanical link systems whose structure may change from open kinematic chain to closed one and vice versa. The proposed algorithm can handle and compute dynamics and motions of any rigid link systems in a seamless manner without switching among algorithms. The computation is developed on the foundation of the dynamics computation algorithms developed in robotics, which is inherently superior in efficiency due to explicit use of the generalized coordinates to those used in the general purpose motion analysis software. The structure varying kinematic chains are commonly found in computing human and animal motions. The established computation will provide the general algorithmic foundation of the computation of motion and control of humanoid robots and CG human figures.