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research article

A smoothed particle hydrodynamics framework for fluid simulation in robotics

Angelidis, Emmanouil
•
Arreguit O'Neill, Jonathan Patrick  
•
Bender, Jan
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March 2025
Robotics and Autonomous Systems

Simulation is a core component of robotics workflows that can shed light on the complex interplay between a physical body, the environment and sensory feedback mechanisms in silico. To this goal several simulation methods, originating in rigid body dynamics and in continuum mechanics have been employed, enabling the simulation of a plethora of phenomena such as rigid/soft body dynamics, fluid dynamics, muscle simulation as well as sensor and actuator dynamics. The physics engines commonly employed in robotics simulation focus on rigid body dynamics, whereas continuum mechanics methods excel on the simulation of phenomena where deformation plays a crucial role, keeping the two fields relatively separate. Here, we propose a shift of paradigm that allows for the accurate simulation of fluids in interaction with rigid bodies within the same robotics simulation framework, based on the continuum mechanics-based Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics method. The proposed framework is useful for simulations such as swimming robots with complex geometries, robots manipulating fluids and even robots emitting highly viscous materials such as the ones used for 3D printing. Scenarios like swimming on the surface, air-water transitions, locomotion on granular media can be natively simulated within the proposed framework. Firstly, we present the overall architecture of our framework and give examples of a concrete software implementation. We then verify our approach by presenting one of the first of its kind simulation of self-propelled swimming robots with a smooth particle hydrodynamics method and compare our simulations with real experiments. Finally, we propose a new category of simulations that would benefit from this approach and discuss ways that the sim-to-real gap could be further reduced.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1016/j.robot.2024.104885
Author(s)
Angelidis, Emmanouil

Technical University of Munich

Arreguit O'Neill, Jonathan Patrick  

EPFL

Bender, Jan

RWTH Aachen University

Berggold, Patrick

Technical University of Munich

Liu, Ziyuan

Munich Research Center

Knoll, Alois

Technical University of Munich

Crespi, Alessandro  

EPFL

Ijspeert, Auke  

EPFL

Date Issued

2025-03

Publisher

Elsevier BV

Published in
Robotics and Autonomous Systems
Volume

185

Article Number

104885

Start page

104885

Subjects

Robotics simulation

•

Self-propelled swimming

•

Locomotion

•

Free surface flows

•

Smoothed particle hydrodynamics

•

Multi-physics

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
BIOROB  
FunderFunding(s)Grant NumberGrant URL

FP7 Ideas: European Research Council

5R01HL059842-18

Human Frontier Science Program

RGP0027/2017

National Centre of Competence in Research Robotics

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Available on Infoscience
January 7, 2025
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/242596
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