Learning Particle Dynamics Subject to Rigid Body Manipulations Using Graph Neural Networks

Simulating particle dynamics with high fidelity is crucial for solving real-world interaction and control tasks involving liquids in design, graphics, and robotics. Recently, data-driven approaches, particularly those based on graph neural networks (GNNs), have shown progress in tackling such problems. However, these approaches are often limited to learning fluid behavior in static free-fall environments or simple manipulation settings involving primitive objects, often overlooking complex interactions with dynamically moving kinematic rigid bodies. Here, we propose a GNN-based framework designed from the ground up to learn the dynamics of liquids under rigid body interactions and active manipulations, where particles are represented as graph nodes and particle-object collisions are handled using surface representations with the bounding volume hierarchy (BVH) algorithm. Our approach accurately captures fluid behavior in dynamic settings and can also function as a simulator in static free-fall environments. Despite being trained on single-object manipulation tasks, our model generalizes effectively to environments with novel objects and novel manipulation tasks. Finally, we show that the learned dynamics can be leveraged to solve control and manipulation tasks using gradient-based optimization methods.