ISSUES IN COMPUTING CONTACT FORCES FOR NONPENETRATING RIGID BODIES

In rigid-body simulation it is necessary to compute the forces that arise between contacting bodies to prevent interpenetration. This paper studies the problem of rigid-body simulation when the bodies being simulated are restricted to contact at only finitely many points. Some theoretical and practical issues in computing contact forces for systems with large numbers of contact points are considered. Both systems of rigid bodies with and without Coulomb friction are studied. Complexity results are derived for certain classes of configurations and numerical methods for computing contact forces are discussed.