TY - JOUR
T1 - Kinematics of Soft Robots by Geometric Computing
AU - Fang, Guoxin
AU - Matte, Christopher Denny
AU - Scharff, Rob B.N.
AU - Kwok, Tsz Ho
AU - Wang, Charlie C.L.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Robots fabricated with soft materials can provide higher flexibility and, thus, better safety while interacting in unpredictable situations. However, the usage of soft material makes it challenging to predict the deformation of a continuum body under actuation and, therefore, brings difficulty to the kinematic control of its movement. In this article, we present a geometry-based framework for computing the deformation of soft robots within the range of linear material elasticity. After formulating both manipulators and actuators as geometry elements, deformation can be efficiently computed by solving a constrained optimization problem. Because of its efficiency, forward and inverse kinematics for soft manipulators can be solved by an iterative algorithm with a low computational cost. Meanwhile, components with multiple materials can also be geometrically modeled in our framework with the help of a simple calibration. Numerical and physical experimental tests are conducted on soft manipulators driven by different actuators with large deformation to demonstrate the performance of our approach.
AB - Robots fabricated with soft materials can provide higher flexibility and, thus, better safety while interacting in unpredictable situations. However, the usage of soft material makes it challenging to predict the deformation of a continuum body under actuation and, therefore, brings difficulty to the kinematic control of its movement. In this article, we present a geometry-based framework for computing the deformation of soft robots within the range of linear material elasticity. After formulating both manipulators and actuators as geometry elements, deformation can be efficiently computed by solving a constrained optimization problem. Because of its efficiency, forward and inverse kinematics for soft manipulators can be solved by an iterative algorithm with a low computational cost. Meanwhile, components with multiple materials can also be geometrically modeled in our framework with the help of a simple calibration. Numerical and physical experimental tests are conducted on soft manipulators driven by different actuators with large deformation to demonstrate the performance of our approach.
KW - Deformation prediction
KW - geometric computing
KW - kinematics
KW - soft robotics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084226495&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TRO.2020.2985583
DO - 10.1109/TRO.2020.2985583
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85084226495
VL - 36
SP - 1272
EP - 1286
JO - IEEE Transactions on Robotics
JF - IEEE Transactions on Robotics
SN - 1552-3098
IS - 4
M1 - 9082704
ER -