MuJoCo: Advanced Physics Simulation
MuJoCo is a remarkable free and open source physics engine with a wide range of applications. It is specifically designed to meet the needs of various fields such as robotics, biomechanics, graphics, and animation.
One of the key strengths of MuJoCo is its combination of speed, accuracy, and modeling power. It offers simulation in generalized coordinates, preventing joint violations. Its inverse dynamics are well-defined even in the presence of contacts, and it uses a unified continuous-time formulation of constraints via convex optimization. This includes soft contacts, limits, dry friction, and equality constraints.
The simulator also enables the simulation of particle systems, cloth, rope, and soft objects. It provides a variety of actuators and offers different solvers, friction cones, Jacobians, and numerical integrators to choose from. Additionally, it features multi-threaded sampling and finite-difference approximations.
MuJoCo comes with an intuitive XML model format (MJCF) and a built-in model compiler. It also has a cross-platform GUI with interactive 3D visualization in OpenGL. The run-time module is written in ANSI C and is hand-tuned for optimal performance.
In summary, MuJoCo is a powerful tool that opens up new possibilities in the fields of simulation and model-based optimization.
