Soft robot modeling, simulation and control in real-time

Abstract

This chapter presents new real-time and physics-based modeling methods dedicated to deformable soft robots. In this approach, continuum mechanics provides the partial derivative equations that govern the deformations, and Finite Element Method (FEM) is used to compute numerical solutions adapted to the robot. A formulation based on Lagrange Multipliers is used to model the behavior of the actuators as well as the contact with the environment. Direct and inverse kinematic models are also obtained for real-time control. Some experiments and numerical results are presented.