Drake
Modeling Dynamical Systems

## Modules

Primitives
General-purpose Systems such as Gain, Multiplexer, Integrator, and LinearSystem.

Controllers
Implementations of controllers that operate as Systems in a block diagram.

Estimators
Implementations of estimators that operate as Systems in a block diagram.

Sensors
Models of sensors that operate as Systems in a block diagram.

Automotive Systems
The drake/automotive folder collects automotive-specific System models and related software.

Manipulation
Systems implementations that specifically support dexterous manipulation capabilities in robotics.

Message Passing
Systems for publishing/subscribing to popular message passing ecosystems.

Perception
Systems for dealing with perception data and/or wrapping basic perception algorithms.

Discrete Systems
This page describes discrete systems modeled by difference equations (contrast to continuous systems modeled by ordinary differential equations) as well as considerations for implementing these systems in Drake.

Stochastic Systems
This page describes the implementation details of modeling a stochastic system in Drake and writing algorithms that explicitly leverage the stochastic modeling framework.

Visualization
Systems for connecting to external visualization tools/GUIs.

Examples
The examples contain a number of useful System implementations.

(Attic) Rigid-Body Systems
These systems are being replaced with drake::multibody::MultibodyPlant and drake::geometry::SceneGraph.

## Classes

class  SceneGraph< T >
SceneGraph serves as the nexus for all geometry (and geometry-based operations) in a Diagram. More...

class  MultibodyPlant< T >
MultibodyPlant is a Drake system framework representation (see systems::System) for the model of a physical system consisting of a collection of interconnected bodies. More...

## Detailed Description

Drake uses a Simulink-inspired description of dynamical systems.

Includes basic building blocks (adders, integrators, delays, etc), physics models of mechanical systems, and a growing list of sensors, actuators, controllers, planners, estimators.

All dynamical systems derive from the drake::systems::System base class, and must explicitly declare all drake::systems::State, drake::systems::Parameters, and noise/disturbances inputs. The drake::systems::Diagram class permits modeling complex systems from libraries of parts.

For a "Hello, World!" example of writing a dynamical system, see simple_continuous_time_system.cc and/or simple_discrete_time_system.cc. For an example of a system that uses some of the more advanced features, such as typed input, output, state, and parameter vectors, see simple_car.h .