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A Ravelin

[Installation instructions](Installation instructions)

What is Ravelin?

Ravelin is a C++ library for rigid body and multi-rigid body kinematics and dynamics.

Reference points for rigid bodies need not be collocated with centers-of-mass
Composite Rigid Body Algorithm and Featherstone Articulated Body Algorithm implementations
Rigid body kinematics and dynamics computation, including poses, velocities, accelerations, inertias, momenta, and forces
Computes Jacobians and generalized forces, velocities, and inertias
Both explicit and implicit joint constraints supported: dynamics computable in minimal coordinates, absolute coordinates, or both (useful for mechanisms with kinematic loops)
Frame checking: operations on kinematic and dynamic quantities defined in different frames throw exceptions
Results from all dynamics algorithms have been verified against Featherstone's MATLAB-based code

Ravelin wraps BLAS and LAPACK in place of Eigen.

Matrix/vector arithmetic and linear algebra through very reliable BLAS and LAPACK libraries
Efficient block operations on matrices and vectors (similar to Eigen's segment() and block() functions)
Minimum templated C++ code for fast compilation
Iterators, which provides compatibility with STL and Boost algorithms
Straightforward semantics on memory allocation toward programming for real-time systems

You should use Ravelin if one or more of the following applies to you:

You want to reduce programming errors by catching frame (pose) mismatches
You want to use the most robust matrix/vector arithmetic and linear algebraic implementation available
You are computing robot kinematics or dynamics
You are programming for real-time systems (like control loops) and need to ensure that memory is not allocated during your real-time code