f = ma

The RBDL – Rigid Body Dynamics Library is a C++ library that contains some essential rigid body dynamics algorithms. It includes the Articulated Body Algorithm (ABA) for forward dynamics, Newton-Euler Algorithm for inverse dynamics and the Composite Rigid Body Algorithm (CRBA) for the efficient computation of the joint space inertia matrix.

I mostly use it for my scientific work, which is funded by the Heidelberg Graduate School of Mathematical  and Computational Methods for the Sciences. I spent quite some time in programming it and making sure it does what it should (more than 90 tests).

Some highlights:

• Articulated Body Algorithm (ABA)
• Newton-Euler Algorithm
• Composite Rigid Body Algorithm (CRBA)
• Contact force computation as described by Kokkevis & Metaxas in “Practical Physics for Articulated Characters”, Game Developers Conference, 2004
• Basic forward and inverse kinematics routines
• Extensive doxygen documentation