An Object-Oriented Architecture for the Simulation of Rigid-Body Kinematics

Kinematic simulation involves finding simultaneous zeros for a set of functions representing mechanical linkages which constrain the positions and orientations of a set of bodies. Evaluation of these functions, and of their Jacobians with respect to the positions and orientations of the bodies, is sufficient to allow the use of a multidimensional Newton-Raphson procedure to solve the kinematic constraint equations. An abstraction comprising such a function and its Jacobian may be implemented as a virtual class in an object-oriented language, yielding a software architecture embodying benefits of object-oriented design and implementation: abstraction, encapsulation, extensibility and reusability. An implementation in Eiffel is described.