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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kurtz, Vince, Castro, Alejandro
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.08771
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author Kurtz, Vince
Castro, Alejandro
author_facet Kurtz, Vince
Castro, Alejandro
contents State-of-the-art robotics simulators operate in discrete time. This requires users to choose a time step, which is both critical and challenging: large steps can produce non-physical artifacts, while small steps force the simulation to run slowly. Continuous-time error-controlled integration avoids such issues by automatically adjusting the time step to achieve a desired accuracy. But existing error-controlled integrators struggle with the stiff dynamics of contact, and cannot meet the speed and scalability requirements of modern robotics workflows. We introduce CENIC, a new continuous-time integrator that brings together recent advances in convex time-stepping and error-controlled integration, inheriting benefits from both continuous integration and discrete time-stepping. CENIC runs at fast real-time rates comparable to discrete-time robotics simulators like MuJoCo, Drake and Isaac Sim, while also providing guarantees on accuracy and convergence.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_08771
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CENIC: Convex Error-controlled Numerical Integration for Contact
Kurtz, Vince
Castro, Alejandro
Robotics
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Computational Physics
State-of-the-art robotics simulators operate in discrete time. This requires users to choose a time step, which is both critical and challenging: large steps can produce non-physical artifacts, while small steps force the simulation to run slowly. Continuous-time error-controlled integration avoids such issues by automatically adjusting the time step to achieve a desired accuracy. But existing error-controlled integrators struggle with the stiff dynamics of contact, and cannot meet the speed and scalability requirements of modern robotics workflows. We introduce CENIC, a new continuous-time integrator that brings together recent advances in convex time-stepping and error-controlled integration, inheriting benefits from both continuous integration and discrete time-stepping. CENIC runs at fast real-time rates comparable to discrete-time robotics simulators like MuJoCo, Drake and Isaac Sim, while also providing guarantees on accuracy and convergence.
title CENIC: Convex Error-controlled Numerical Integration for Contact
topic Robotics
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Computational Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.08771