Distributed Affine Body Dynamics with Adaptive Consensus

TL;DR

This paper introduces a distributed formulation of Affine Body Dynamics using a consensus-based ADMM scheme, enabling scalable simulation of stiff solids with guarantees of non-penetration and robustness across multiple compute nodes.

Contribution

It presents a novel distributed ABD method that maintains IPC-level robustness and global consistency, improving scalability for large-scale simulations.

Findings

Stable convergence and non-penetration in distributed simulations

Efficient scaling demonstrated on large scenes across multiple nodes

Preserves accuracy and robustness of IPC in a distributed setting

Abstract

Affine Body Dynamics (ABD) within the Incremental Potential Contact (IPC) framework provides accurate simulation of extremely stiff solids exhibiting near-rigid behavior, with strict non-penetration guarantees. However, IPC's globally coupled barrier constraints hinder scalable execution across multiple GPUs and compute nodes. We propose a distributed formulation of ABD using a consensus-based ADMM scheme. Each compute node solves its local ABD subproblem in parallel, followed by a global consensus step that enforces consistency among shared boundary bodies. The proposed method preserves IPC-level robustness and global consistency under distributed execution. Experiments demonstrate stable convergence, non-penetration, and efficient scaling on large-scale scenes across multiple nodes.