Multibody Contact Force Block Examples in Simscape Multibody

Examples demonstrating contact force modeling in Simscape Multibody

This repository contains a set of examples that demonstrate the Spatial Contact Force block and Planar Contact Force block. The examples cover:

• Solid-to-solid contact between parameterized solids like bricks, spheres, and cylinders
• Contact between CAD geometry including STEP files.
• Point Cloud definition for efficient contact modeling of complex shapes.
• Grid Surface modeling for efficient contact modeling with terrain.
• Custom force law definition including collision and friction forces.

Use the "Download from GitHub" button above to access files compatible with the current release of MATLAB.

You can also try these examples in MATLAB Online.

For earlier MATLAB releases, use "Version History" tab above or these links:

• R2025b, R2025a, R2024b, R2024a, R2023b, R2023a, R2022b, R2022a, R2021b, R2021a, R2020b, R2020a

Open the project file Spatial_Contact_Force_Examples.prj to get started.

To learn more about contact modeling with Simscape Multibody, please visit:

• Modeling Contact Force Between Two Solids
• Use Contact Proxies to Simulate Contact

Learn how to use Simscape with

• Self-paced tutorials, including multi-domain systems, 3D mechanical systems, circuits, motors, and battery packs.
• Searching posts for the keyword "physical modeling".
• Stories from users: https://www.mathworks.com/solutions/physical-modeling.html

See also:

• Simscape™
• Simscape Battery™
• Simscape Driveline™
• Simscape Electrical™
• Simscape Fluids™
• Simscape Multibody™

This submission uses the S^2 Sampling Toolbox Anton Semechko (2022). Suite of functions to perform uniform sampling of a sphere (https://github.com/AntonSemechko/S2-Sampling-Toolbox), GitHub. Retrieved March 24, 2022.