Characterizing the universal rigidity of generic frameworks

A framework is a graph and a map from its vertices to E^d (for some d). A framework is universally rigid if any framework in any dimension with the same graph and edge lengths is a Euclidean image of it. We show that a generic universally rigid framework has a positive semi-definite stress matrix of maximal rank. Connelly showed that the existence of such a positive semi-definite stress matrix is sufficient for universal rigidity, so this provides a characterization of universal rigidity for generic frameworks. We also extend our argument to give a new result on the genericity of strict complementarity in semidefinite programming.Comment: 18 pages, v2: updates throughout; v3: published versio

Universally Rigid Framework Attachments

A framework is a graph and a map from its vertices to R^d. A framework is called universally rigid if there is no other framework with the same graph and edge lengths in R^d' for any d'. A framework attachment is a framework constructed by joining two frameworks on a subset of vertices. We consider an attachment of two universally rigid frameworks that are in general position in R^d. We show that the number of vertices in the overlap between the two frameworks must be sufficiently large in order for the attachment to remain universally rigid. Furthermore, it is shown that universal rigidity of such frameworks is preserved even after removing certain edges. Given positive semidefinite stress matrices for each of the two initial frameworks, we analytically derive the PSD stress matrices for the combined and edge-reduced frameworks. One of the benefits of the results is that they provide a general method for generating new universally rigid frameworks.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

On affine rigidity

We define the notion of affine rigidity of a hypergraph and prove a variety of fundamental results for this notion. First, we show that affine rigidity can be determined by the rank of a specific matrix which implies that affine rigidity is a generic property of the hypergraph.Then we prove that if a graph is is $(d+1)$-vertex-connected, then it must be "generically neighborhood affinely rigid" in $d$-dimensional space. This implies that if a graph is $(d+1)$-vertex-connected then any generic framework of its squared graph must be universally rigid. Our results, and affine rigidity more generally, have natural applications in point registration and localization, as well as connections to manifold learning.Comment: Updated abstrac

Toward the Universal Rigidity of General Frameworks

Let (G,P) be a bar framework of n vertices in general position in R^d, d <= n-1, where G is a (d+1)-lateration graph. In this paper, we present a constructive proof that (G,P) admits a positive semi-definite stress matrix with rank n-d-1. We also prove a similar result for a sensor network where the graph consists of m(>= d+1) anchors.Comment: v2, a revised version of an earlier submission (v1

Natural realizations of sparsity matroids

A hypergraph G with n vertices and m hyperedges with d endpoints each is (k,l)-sparse if for all sub-hypergraphs G' on n' vertices and m' edges, m'\le kn'-l. For integers k and l satisfying 0\le l\le dk-1, this is known to be a linearly representable matroidal family. Motivated by problems in rigidity theory, we give a new linear representation theorem for the (k,l)-sparse hypergraphs that is natural; i.e., the representing matrix captures the vertex-edge incidence structure of the underlying hypergraph G.Comment: Corrected some typos from the previous version; to appear in Ars Mathematica Contemporane

Graph connectivity and universal rigidity of bar frameworks

Let $G$ be a graph on $n$ nodes. In this note, we prove that if $G$ is $(r+1)$-vertex connected, $1 \leq r \leq n-2$, then there exists a configuration $p$ in general position in $R^r$ such that the bar framework $(G,p)$ is universally rigid. The proof is constructive and is based on a theorem by Lovasz et al concerning orthogonal representations and connectivity of graphs [12,13].Comment: updated versio

Iterative Universal Rigidity

A bar framework determined by a finite graph $G$ and configuration $\bf p$ in $d$ space is universally rigid if it is rigid in any ${\mathbb R}^D \supset {\mathbb R}^d$. We provide a characterization of universally rigidity for any graph $G$ and any configuration ${\bf p}$ in terms of a sequence of affine subsets of the space of configurations. This corresponds to a facial reduction process for closed finite dimensional convex cones.Comment: 41 pages, 12 figure