Mechanics Research Communications 58 (2014) 4652

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Mechanics Research Communications

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mechrescom

A numerical algorithm for tensegrity dynamics with

non-minimal coordinates
Joono Cheong a, , Robert E. Skelton b , Youngsu Cho a
a
b

Department of Control and Instrumentation Engineering, Korea University, Sejong-City 339-700, South Korea
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, San Diego, CA 92122, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 31 May 2013
Received in revised form 9 January 2014
Accepted 28 January 2014
Available online 10 February 2014

a b s t r a c t
This paper provides a numerical correction algorithm for implementation of the dynamics of tensegrity systems described by non-minimal coordinates. This correction algorithm corrects any numerical
error that would violate the fixed-length bar constraints. A recursive form of the correction algorithm is
proposed, and simulation results support the validity of the proposed scheme.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Tensegrity
Numerical correction
Dynamics
Non-minimal coordinates
Constraints

1. Introduction
The lack of efficient dynamic models hindered the acceptance
of tensegrity systems in engineering applications. During the last
decade both minimal and non-minimal dynamics models have
been proposed. The advantage of minimal realizations is that the
smallest number of variables is computed (generalized coordinates). The disadvantage of minimal realizations is the complexity
of the structure of the equations, requiring many transcendental
functions to be computed at every time step, where the mass
matrix is nonlinear and must be inverted at every computational
step.
Motro et al. (1986) performed experimental studies on the
dynamics of a simple tensegrity with 3 bars and 9 cables. Sultan
(1999) derived a nonlinear dynamics of tensegrity systems using a
minimal set of coordinates. Oppenheim and Williams (2001) investigated the vibratory behavior by geometric stiffness and damping
for a simple 3-bar tensegrity in an analytic way. Murakami (2001)
derived minimal nonlinear dynamics of tensegrity, analyzing initial
prestress and modal behavior.
Non-minimal coordinate approaches are more recent, e.g., by
Skelton (2005, 2010). The advantage of non-minimal approaches
is the simpler structure of the equations, leading to more exact
computations via a proper method of implementation to correct

Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 448601449; fax: +82 448601825.

E-mail address: jncheong@korea.ac.kr (J. Cheong).
0093-6413/$ see front matter 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mechrescom.2014.01.008

for integration errors. Consequently, the non-minimal approaches

can handle larger dimensional systems more accurately. Quite
often in mathematics the structure of the equations is simplified
by using a larger number of variables, as opposed to the minimal number. Examples include: (i) Hamiltons Quaternions and
(ii) solving nonlinear Riccati equations of dimension n using linear algebra in dimension 2n. By describing the tensegrity dynamics
using 6 degrees of freedom for each rigid rod (instead of the
minimal number 5), the mass matrix in this higher dimension
becomes constant without terms containing transcendental functions, and the structure of the equations is the simplest of all
available dynamic models of tensegrity. And the dynamics is linear in the force density of the members which can be controlled.
The non-minimal dynamics is also described in a compact matrix
form, rather than in a vector form.
However, the non-minimal dynamics need to be handled carefully during the computer implementation. In the absence of
computational errors (in an ideal situation), any initial conditions
that satisfy the bar length constraints will lead to solutions of the
dynamic equations. But, in the presence of computational error, the
non-minimal coordinates can drift, creating computational instabilities. The purpose of this paper is thus to correct that situation,
so that computers can solve non-minimal tensegrity dynamics reliably. A recursive numerical algorithm will be provided to make the
matrix form of the non-minimal equations an efficient option for
dynamic simulations of tensegrity systems.
Except the aforementioned analytic approaches, the finite
element method (FEM), a general computer-based numerical

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J. Cheong et al. / Mechanics Research Communications 58 (2014) 4652

n6

w5

s1

n3 , n2

n5
b2

n4

w3

s2

w2

= [#1 , #2 , . . ., # ] is the force density in the bars

of the ith cable; #
defined as
= % 1 l
#
2

w6

b1

matrix with bi being the ith bar-vector, and S = NC Ts = [s1 s2 . . .s ]

is a cable matrix; ! R3nc is a non-working constraint force for
the following linear node constraints

n1

(1)

where N ! [n1 n2 . . .n2 ] R32 is the nodal coordinate

matrix whose columns represent the end points of bars;
W ! [w 1 w 2 . . .w 2 ] R32 is the external force matrix whose
columns represent the forces at the corresponding nodes; M and
K are defined as

= diag[m1 , m2 , . . ., m ] is the mass matrix where mi

where m

denotes the mass of the ith bar, C b R2 , C r R2 , and C s

R2 , are connectivity matrices of bars, centers of bars, and cables,
respectively (Skelton, 2010); " = diag[!1 !2 . . .! ] is a force density
matrix for cables whose components are

(5)

R2nc

R2(2nc )

where U
U1
and U 2
are defined
from the singular value decomposition (SVD) over P such that
T

P = UV = [U 1 U 2 ]

1
0

[ V T ],

(6)

where V Rnc nc is a unitary orthogonal matrix and 1 Rnc nc

is a diagonal matrix whose elements are positive singular values.
Rewriting the constraint in (4) as
T

NP = NUV = [$1 $2 ]

1
0

[ V T ] = D,

(7)

yields
1

$1 = DV 1 ; $ 1 = 0;

and $ 1 = 0.

(8)

Thus, $2 serves as a set of reduced coordinates in the reduced

dimensional dynamics, which is written as

&,
& + $2 K
&=W
$ 2 M

(9)

& ! U T2 MU 2 ,
M

& ! U T2 KU 2 ,
K

& ! W U 2 $1 U T1 KU 2 .
and W

Along with above, the condition in (8) produces an additional algebraic equation:
T

$1 U T1 KM1 U 1 + $2 U T2 KM1 U 1 = W M1 U 1 + !V 1 U T1 M1 U 1 ,
(10)

(2)

otherwise

||soi ||

is the constraint relation matrix, D

where P
denotes the constraint values, and nc is the number of independent
relations among nodes. The size of variable N in (1) is much larger
than the minimal one that is just needed to describe the system.
Also, note that the force densities ! i and #i are the relevant forces
in cables and bars per each unit length. For prior dynamic works
using force densities, see Schek (1974). The force density method
was used back in 1970s by Schek (and his colleagues) to convert the
nonlinear equilibrium equations into linear equations using nonlinear transformation between force density and rest length. Through
this transformation, the control variable (i.e., force density) appears
linearly in the equation. This will be an advantage in the control
design problem not discussed in this paper.
The dynamics of tensegrity systems in (1) can be reduced into a
smaller dimensional one by augmenting the algebraic relation (4).
For this purpose, let us introduce a new variable as

where

b,
s C Tb #C
and K := C Ts "C

o
" ||si || ||si || if||s || > ||so ||
i
i
i
||s
||
!i =
i = 1, 2, . . .,
i

R3nc

R22 ,

This section briefly introduces the dynamics of general (classk) tensegrity systems, expressed in a matrix differential equation,
using non-minimal coordinates. Readers refer to Skelton (2010) for
the details. Throughout this paper, the following assumptions on
the bars and cables are made: (i) bars are uniform in their cross
sections, (ii) the moment of inertia about the bar axis is negligible
(thin-bar assumption), and (iii) cables are uniform and massless.
The general form of dynamics for tensegrity systems with bars
and cables, as depicted in Fig. 1, can be written by the following
form:

NM
+ NK = W + !P T ,

R2nc

$ = [$1 $2 ] ! NU = [NU 1 NU 2 ],

2. Preliminary: dynamics of generic tensegrity systems

(4)

NP = D,

approach, may be another option useable for modeling the

tensegrity systems by approximating rigid bars as arbitrarily stiff
elements. An example is Furuya (1992) where the effect of prestress on modal frequency was investigated by analyzing the
vibrational characteristics of tensegrity structures using the FEM.
However, there are disadvantages in using the FEM when modeling
the tensegrity systems with many rigid elements such as possibility of ill-conditioned mass matrix, difficulty in choosing integration
times, and computational inefficiency due to the extremely high
dimensionality of its equation. See Koutsovasilis (2009) and references therein for more information.

1 T
1
b + C Tr mC
r
C mC
12 b
4

(3)

li denotes the length of the ith bar, B = NC Tb = [b1 b2 . . .b ] is the bar

Fig. 1. An example of a tensegrity system, where ni , bj , sk , and w l denote the ith

end point (node) of bars, the jth bar-vector, the kth cable vector, and the lth external
force, respectively.

M :=

1 2
T

B B&,
l m
12

where % & denotes the diagonal operator which collects only the
diagonal part, l = diag[l1 , l2 , . . ., l ] is the bar-length matrix where

w1

w4

s W !P T )C Tb
BT (S "C

where || si || is the length of the ith cable vector,

is the cable
length when the cable is not stressed, and "i is the material stiffness

which can be simplified to

NKM1 U 1 !P T M1 U 1 = W M1 U 1 .

(11)

Ultimately, (9) and (11) form a matrix differential algebraic equation (DAE) that represents the reduced dynamics of the general

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J. Cheong et al. / Mechanics Research Communications 58 (2014) 4652

tensegrity systems. To solve this DAE, we need to first solve (11)

for ! and then supply the result into (9) and progress the integration. The integration can be carried out directly using matrix form
of the equation.
3. Numerical correction of non-minimal coordinates
Any two nodes of a bar in tensegrity systems should be
restrained such that their distance remains equal to the length of
the bar. This condition generates a set of invariants of constraints
in the forms of zeroth-order, first-order, second-order, and so on,
as follows:
T

bTi bi = li2 (zeroth-order form); 2b i bi = 0 (first-order form); and

Unfortunately, in the presence of computational error (roundoff)
the reduced dynamics (9) with (11) or, the full-order dynamics
in (1) may not satisfy all these requirements while solving the
dynamics numerically, even if the second-order length constraint
has been already embedded during the formulation (Skelton, 2010).
This is due to the numerical drift phenomenon, and the constraints
are destined to be violated no matter how accurately the initial
condition is given (Garcia de Jalon and Bayo, 1994), leading to instabilities in the system.
Traditional remedies to prevent from the numerical drift in
the areas of multi-body dynamics are classified largely into two
categories. (i) The first one is to directly augment a stable secondorder error dynamics that constantly decreases the numerical error
(Baumgarte, 1972; Kurdila and Narcowich, 1993), but this does
not guarantee that the constraints are met at all times during the
simulation. (ii) The second approach is to iteratively project the
numerical error (Von Schwerin, 1999) on to the invariant manifold
until the error is removed. Our correction is closer to the spirit of
Von Schwerin (1999), but we correct the error in the exact way, not
iteratively, and deal with matrix methods to exploit the simplicity
of the matrix equation structure. These features will be better suited
for tensegrity systems.

We need to find a corrected $(k) (or N(k)), at each t = k, from

erroneous $(k) (or N(k)) that was obtained at each instant of
dynamic simulation. Hereafter, a quantity with an over line like
( ) will denote a perturbed quantity from a true one, and argument
(k) will be omitted if no confusion occurs.
Each of true bar-vectors at t = k must satisfy
T

bTi bi = (Nc Tb,i ) (Nc Tb,i )

T

(13)

where c b,i is the ith row of C b . Being that $1 is a known constant,

the perturbation of $ can be solely defined as $2 ! $2 $2 , and so
the above equation becomes
li2 ,

(14)

where bi = $1 U T1 c Tb,i + $2 U T2 c Tb,i is the bar-vector before correction,

and i ! U T2 c Tb,i R2nc . The general solution of (14) is found by
the following form. (See Theorem 2.3.9 in Skelton et al. (1998).)

$2 = (li hi bi )+
+ Z i (I 2nc i +
)
i
i
1

(15)

where +
! (Ti i ) Ti is the MoorePenrose inverse of i , hi R3
i
is a unit vector, and Z i R3(2nc ) is arbitrary. We take that
hi := bi /||bi ||,

(0)

(0)

where $2

is the initial perturbation to be

2
T
b i bi + b i b i = 0 (second-order form), i = 1, 2, . . ., .

(12)

corrected through the length constraint of the first bar. From (15),
(0)
$2 is
(0)

$2 = (l1 h1 b1 )+
+ Z1H1,
1

(16)

) is a projection matrix to a vector space

where H 1 = (I 2nc 1 +
1
normal to 1 . By using (16), we obtain
(0)

(0)

(0)

(1)

(1)

$2 = $2 + $2 = $2 + (l1 h1 b1 )+
+ Z 1 H 1 = $2 + $2 , (17)
1
where
(1)

(0)

$2 := $2 + (l1 h1 b1 )+
1

(1)

and $2 := Z 1 H 1 .

By plugging (17) into the length constraint of the second bar in (13),
we obtain
T

(b2 + Z 1 '2 ) (b2 + Z 1 '2 ) = l22 ,

(18)

(1)

where b2 = $1 U T1 c Tb,2 + $2 U T2 c Tb,2 and '2 ! H 1 2 . The solution of

Z 1 is found to be
+

Z 1 = (l2 h2 b2 )('2 ) + Z 2 H 2 ,

(19)
(I 2nc '2 ('2 )+ ).

(1)

(2)

From (17) and

(2)

(20)

$2 = $2 + (l2 h2 b2 )('2 )+ H 1 + Z 2 H 2 H 1 = $2 + $2 ,
(2)

(1)

(2)

where $2 := $2 + (l2 h2 b2 )('2 )+ H 1 and $2 := Z 2 H 2 H 1 . By

continuing the same procedure, we arrive at the solution of Z 1
that corrects for the last bar length as follows.
+

Z 1 = (l h b )(' ) + Z H ,
where

= ($1 U T1 c Tb,i + $2 U T2 c Tb,i ) ($1 U T1 c Tb,i + $2 U T2 c Tb,i ) = li2 ,

(bi + $2 i ) (bi + $2 i ) =

(0)

$2 = $2 + $2

where h2 = b2 /||b2 || and H 2 =

(19), we obtain

3.1. Correction for bar length preservation

from which the first term in the right side of (15) becomes the
minimum-norm correction to yield the true length. The second
term in the right side of (15), i.e., the left null-space projection of
i , will work as the correction term to satisfy the length constraints
of the rest of bars.
To recursively carry out the bar length correction, we intro(i)
duce superscript (i) as $2 , denoting the corrected result of $2
after imposing the length constraints from the first i bars. Prior
(0)
to any correction, it is that $2 := $2 . Thus, we can write that

h = b /||b ||,

' (' )+ ).

Note that

finally obtain
(1)

$2 = $2

(21)

' ! ($i=1 H i ) ,

1
$i=1 H i

and

H = (I 2nc

! H 1 H 2 . . .H 2 H 1 . From this, we
1

()

()

+ (l h b )(' ) $i=1 H i + Z $i=1 H i = $2 + $2 ,

(22)

where
()

(1)

$2 := $2

()

+ (l h b )(' ) $i=1 H i and $2 := Z $i=1 H i .

()

Since there is no other length constraint to be satisfied, $2

becomes the ultimate correction of $2 .
3.2. Correction for orthogonality preservation
From (12), the first-order form of bar-length constraint is
bTi b i = 0, i = 1, 2, . . ., ,

(23)

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J. Cheong et al. / Mechanics Research Communications 58 (2014) 4652

implying the orthogonality between a bar-vector and its barvelocity. However, the orthogonality is easily violated during the
numerical computation. Assuming that the bar-vector, bi , is errorfree after the previous length correction, the violation of the
orthogonality is entirely attributed to the incorrect bar-velocity,
b , which must be corrected.
i

So, let us define the required correction for the ith bar-velocity,
b i ! b i b i , satisfying
bTi (b i + b i ) = 0,

(24)

The minimum-norm solution is desirable because it takes the least

variation necessary to satisfy the constraint. Because b i = $ 2 i
with i = U T2 c Tb,i , we obtain the required correction, $ 2 , as follows:
li2

+
i

+ Y i (I 2nc i +
),
i

(25)

where Y i R3(2nc ) is arbitrary and can be chosen to meet the

orthogonality requirements in other bars.
(0)
We begin the velocity correction by denoting $
for $ before
any correction. Then it can be written that $ 2 =
(0)

2
(0)
$ 2

2
(0)
+ $ 2 .

From

(25), $ 2 is solved, by imposing the orthogonality condition of the

first bar, as follows:
(0)

$ 2 =

b1 bT1 b 1
l12

+
+ Y 1H1,
1

(26)

where H 1 = (I 2nc 1 +
) is defined in (16). (Note that H i , i = 1, 2,
1
. . ., , in this subsection are the same as those defined previously.)
Then,
(0)

(0)

(0)

$ 2 = $ 2 + $ 2 = $ 2

b1 bT1 b 1
l12

(1)

(1)

+
+ Y 1 H 1 = $ 2 + $ 2 ,
1

(27)

where
(1)
(0)
b1 bT1 b 1 +
1
$ 2 := $ 2
l12

(1)

and $ 2 := Y 1 H 1 .

For the second bar to meet the orthogonality constraint, the needed
minimal correction of bar-velocity is
(1)

b 2 = $ 2 2 = Y 1 '2 =

b2 bT2 b 2
l22

(1)
where '2 = H 1 2 and b 2 = $ 2 2 . (Note that 'i , i = 2, 3, . . ., , in
this subsection are the same as those previously defined.) Thus,

Y1 =

b2 bT2 b 2
l22

('2 ) + Y 2 H 2 ,

(28)

which leads to the following:

(1)
(1)
(2)
b2 bT2 b 2 ' +
(1)
(2)
(2 ) H 1 + Y 2 H 2 H 1 = $ 2 + $ 2 ,
$ 2 = $ 2 + $ 2 = $ 2
2
l2
(29)

where
(2)
(1)
b2 bT2 b 2 ' +
(2 ) H 1 ,
$ 2 := $ 2
l22

b bT b
l2

(1)
where b = $ 2
. Therefore,

b bT b
l2

(' ) + Y H .

(30)

With this solution, the following holds:

+
bi bTi b i
b i = (bTi ) bTi b i =
.
li2

$ 2 =

b = Y 1 ' =

Y 1 =

whose minimum-norm solution is

bi bTi b i

By continuing the same procedure, we arrive at the required correction for the last bar (i = ) as

(2)

$ 2 := Y 2 H 2 H 1 .

(1)
(1)
(1)
$ 2 = $ 2
+ $ 2
= $ 2

b bT b
l2

(' ) ($i=1 H i )

()

()
+ Y ($i=1 H i ) = $ 2 + $ 2 ,

(31)

where
()
(1)

$ 2 := $ 2

b bT b
l2

(' ) $i=1 H i

()

and $ 2 := Y $i=1 H i .

Because there is no further orthogonality constraint to be met, we

()
take $
as our desired correction for $ . The procedure to correct
2

the velocities, like the procedure to correct the positions, turns out
to be the successive GramSchmidt orthogonal projections such
that any correction of velocity occurs in the orthogonal direction to
the previous correction so that it does not affect the previous result.
4. Numerical study
Numerical examples in this section demonstrate the validity and
efficacy of the proposed numerical correction scheme. The tensegrity systems used in the numerical study were two-stage tensegrity
prism and icosahedron whose bottoms were fixed to the ground,
as shown in Fig. 2. These were the initial configurations under nonzero pretensions.
The first tensegrity model, a two-stage prism, belongs to class
2 tensegrity, having common nodes of, at most, two rigid bars. We
assumed that the masses of bars are identically to be m = 1[kg] and
that the stiffness coefficient in the cable is uniform
as " = 500[N/m].
The height of each stage was set to be 1/2 + 3/6[m], and three
nodes in each horizontal face formed an equilateral triangle with
unity side
length. This corresponded to the length of each bar equal
to (1 + 3)/2[m]. Once we defined the connectivity and constraint
matrices of the system ( C s , C b , P, etc.), it became straightforward to formulate the reduced dynamic Eq. (9) with algebraic
constraint (11). Using the proposed dynamics formulation with
physical parameters, we obtained the simulated response under the
sinusoidal excitation, sin(%t)[ 1, 0, 0]T [N], applied on each node
at the top face. We applied the numerical correction algorithm during the simulation. The simulation was implemented using Matlab
software (MathWorks, Inc., Natick, MA) with time step of 0.001[s].
Fig. 3 shows the responses of node n4 and n8 and tensions
in s4 and s13 . In the responses of nodes, the low frequency component came from the external sinusoidal load whereas the high
frequency component seemed to be due to the natural frequency
(about 10 Hz) at the current configuration. Tensions at t = 0[s] did
not start from zero because of the pretensions. To verify the correctness of our simulation, the same dynamics simulation was carried
out by using a commercial package, ADAMS (MSC Software, Newport Beach, CA), and the results were overlapped with those from
ours. Fig. 4 illustrates how accurately the constraints (the length
and orthogonality requirements) were preserved by the proposed

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J. Cheong et al. / Mechanics Research Communications 58 (2014) 4652

s10
s11
s12
n9

n7

b6

s1

b5
b4
n5

s5

s6

z
s7

s8

b2

b1

s5

s13

s9

n4

b3
n2

s1

s2

s3

n1

n3

b4

s7

s14

s2

n5

s15

n9

b 5 s9

s3

s18

n 10 b 2
s20
s8

s23

n 11

n6

s4

s6

n1

s15

s4

n4

n2

s14

s13

n8

s24

b1

n 12 s22

b3

s19

n6

s10

n3

s16

b6

s11

n7

s21

s12

s17

n8
Origin

Fig. 2. Tensegrity systems. (a) tensegrity prism (class 2); (b) tensegrity icosahedron (class 1).

0.08

0.09
2
3
Time [s]

Proposed
ADAMS

0.58

0.575

2
3
Time [s]

1.62

1.6

2
3
Time [s]

2
3
Time [s]

2
3
Time [s]

30

2
3
Time [s]

Elongation [mm]

25

Proposed
ADAMS

20

Elongation [mm]

15
10

Tension [N]

10

0.94
0

Proposed
ADAMS

15

1.56

25
20

1.58

0.57

Proposed
ADAMS

0.96

0.77

Zcoordinate [m]

Ycoordinate [m]

E 0.585

Proposed
ADAMS

0.98

0.78

Tension [N], Elong. [mm]

1.04
1.02

0.8

0.79

0.29

0.285

Proposed
ADAMS

0.81

Tension [N], Elong. [mm]

Xcoordinate [m]

Ycoordinate [m]

0.295

0.07

Proposed
ADAMS

Xcoordinate [m]

Proposed
ADAMS

Zcoordinate [m]

A 0.06

2
3
Time [s]

Tension [N]

0
0

2
3
Time [s]

Fig. 3. Simulation results of the tensegrity prism. Results from the proposed numerical approach and ADAMS package are compared. (a) n4,x ; (b) n4,y ; (c) n4,z ; (d) n8,x ; (e) n8,y ;
(f) n8,z ; (g) || t 4 || and ||s4 || |so4 ||; (h) || t 13 and ||s13 || |so13 ||.

divergence occurred (Fig. 5(c) and (d)), but then they were very
much separated afterward. From these results, we could verify
that the proposed numerical correction algorithm plays an important role in implementing the non-minimal dynamics of tensegrity
systems.
The second example of tensegrity system was an icosaherdon
in Fig. 6(b). Here, the length and mass of each bar were 1[m] and
1[kg], respectively, and the stiffness coefficient in each cable was
" = 500[N/m], same as previous. Since the non-minimal dynamics

16

16

x 10

Length [m]

Length [m]

4
2
0

4
1

2
3
Time [s]

6
0

x 10
2

17

x 10

Orthogonality

2
3
Time [s]

16

x 10

0.5
0

0.5

4
1

Orthogonality

correction algorithm. Results showed that the constraints were

obeyed to the accuracy of 1016 throughout the time.
In order to verify the importance of the numerical correction algorithm, we carried out the same simulation as above, but
without the correction algorithm. As shown in Fig. 5, the simulation results without correction became unstable and diverged.
The length and orthogonality constraints became violated in a few
seconds without correction (Fig. 5(a) and (b)). The responses without correction were close to those with the correction before the

2
3
Time [s]

1
0

2
3
Time [s]

Fig. 4. Preservation of constraints via numerical correction algorithm. (a) length error at b2 ; (b) length error at t 5 ; (c) orthogonality b2 b 2 ; (d) orthogonality b5 b 5 .
T

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J. Cheong et al. / Mechanics Research Communications 58 (2014) 4652

15

Corrected
Uncorrected

2
1
0

4
6
Time [s]

2
0

10

D 1.5

Corrected
Uncorrected

0.1
0.05

4
6
Time [s]

0.1
0

10

0.5

0.05

2
0

0.2
0.15

Zcoordinate [m]

x 10
3

Xcoordinate [m]

Corrected
Uncorrected

Orthogonality

Length error [m]

A2

4
6
Time [s]

10

Corrected
Uncorrected

4
6
Time [s]

10

Fig. 5. Comparison of responses with and without numerical correction algorithm. (a) length error at b2 (b) orthogonality b5 b 5 (c) n4,x (d) n8,x .
T

0.45

2
3
Time [s]

0.1

Zcoordinate [m]
1

0.892

2
3
Time [s]

0.89
0

0.25
0.25
0.25

2
3
Time [s]

2
3
Time [s]

9
8
7
6

2
3
Time [s]

10

Elongation [mm]

Proposed
ADMAS

Tension [N]

5
4
0

0.25
0

H 11

10

0.894

Proposed
ADMAS

0.25

G 11

Proposed
ADMAS

0.896

0.115

0.125
0

0.9
0.898

0.11

0.12

2
3
Time [s]

Proposed
ADMAS

0.25

0.89
1

0.25

Tension [N], Elong. [mm]

0.435
0

0.9

0.895

0.44

Proposed
ADMAS

D
Proposed
ADMAS

Xcoordinate [m]

0.46

0.445

0.105

Ycoordinate [m]

Proposed
ADMAS

0.455

4
0

0.465

Zcoordinate [m]

x 10

Tension [N], Elong. [mm]

Ycoordinate [m]

Xcoordinate [m]

2
3
Time [s]

9
8
7
6

Elongation [mm]

Proposed
ADMAS

Tension [N]

5
4
0

2
3
Time [s]

Fig. 6. Simulation results of the tensegrity icosahedron. Results from the proposed numerical approach and ADAMS package are compared. (a) n2,x ; (b) n2,y ; (c) n2,z ; (d) n5,x ;
(e) n5,y ; (f) n5,z ; (g) || t 1 || and ||s1 || |so1 ||; (h) || t 13 and ||s13 || |so13 ||.

formulation is invariant to the shapes of tensegrity systems, we

re-used the programming code used in simulating the tensegrity
prism, after properly redefining C s , C b , P, etc.
Fig. 6 shows the simulation results with external force, sin(%t)[0,
0, 1]T [N], applied on nodes, n1 , n2 , and n5 . The displacements of nodes were small but smooth without noticeable high
frequency components. On the contrary, tensions in s1 and s13
contained rather high frequency components, although their magnitudes were small. Simulation from ADAMS also showed the
same results as ours, ascertaining the validity of our dynamics
approach.
While the proposed approach can be applied to any dimension
of tensegrity systems, the computation time is not just linear with
the number of bars. For example, the computation time for the
above simulations took about 1020 s using a PC with a Core I7
Intel processor, but it took more than a hour for the simulation of a
multi-stage tensegrity prism with 60 bars. However, we believe
that optimization of code and parallel processing by multi-core
CPUs are promising for a substantial reduction of computation time
for any dimension of tensegrity systems.

5. Concluding remarks
In this paper, we proposed a numerical correction algorithm
for implementing the dynamics of tensegrity systems described
by non-minimal coordinates. The proposed algorithm computes
and compensates for the exact amount of numerical computational
errors that cause the violation of the bar-length constraints, ensuring a correct computation of dynamics. A recursive form of error
compensation makes the algorithm convenient and effective. The

correction algorithm does not rely on any iterative routine, so the

computation is deterministic. The numerical study confirms the
theoretical results that we claimed.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported, in part, by the Basic Science
Research Program through the National Research Foundation of
Korea(NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and
Technology (2012R1A1A2042823), and by the Korea University
Grant.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found,
in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mechrescom.
2014.01.008.
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