A Unified Method for Solving Inverse, Forward, and Hybrid Manipulator Dynamics using Factor Graphs

This paper describes a unified method solving for inverse, forward, and hybrid dynamics problems for robotic manipulators with either open kinematic chains or closed kinematic loops based on factor graphs. Manipulator dynamics is considered to be a well studied problem, and various different algorithms have been developed to solve each type of dynamics problem. However, they are not easily explained in an unified and intuitive way. In this paper, we introduce factor graphs as a unifying graphical language in which not only to solve all types of dynamics problems, but also explain the classical dynamics algorithms in a unified framework.