Stable Real-Time Feedback Control of a Pneumatic Soft Robot

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Even, Sean, Zheng, Tongjia, Lin, Hai, Ozkan-Aydin, Yasemin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Even, Sean
Zheng, Tongjia
Lin, Hai
Ozkan-Aydin, Yasemin
author_facet Even, Sean
Zheng, Tongjia
Lin, Hai
Ozkan-Aydin, Yasemin
contents Soft actuators offer compliant and safe interaction with an unstructured environment compared to their rigid counterparts. However, control of these systems is often challenging because they are inherently under-actuated, have infinite degrees of freedom (DoF), and their mechanical properties can change by unknown external loads. Existing works mainly relied on discretization and reduction, suffering from either low accuracy or high computational cost for real-time control purposes. Recently, we presented an infinite-dimensional feedback controller for soft manipulators modeled by partial differential equations (PDEs) based on the Cosserat rod theory. In this study, we examine how to implement this controller in real-time using only a limited number of actuators. To do so, we formulate a convex quadratic programming problem that tunes the feedback gains of the controller in real time such that it becomes realizable by the actuators. We evaluated the controller's performance through experiments on a physical soft robot capable of planar motions and show that the actual controller implemented by the finite-dimensional actuators still preserves the stabilizing property of the desired infinite-dimensional controller. This research fills the gap between the infinite-dimensional control design and finite-dimensional actuation in practice and suggests a promising direction for exploring PDE-based control design for soft robots.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2304_04304
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Stable Real-Time Feedback Control of a Pneumatic Soft Robot
Even, Sean
Zheng, Tongjia
Lin, Hai
Ozkan-Aydin, Yasemin
Robotics
Soft actuators offer compliant and safe interaction with an unstructured environment compared to their rigid counterparts. However, control of these systems is often challenging because they are inherently under-actuated, have infinite degrees of freedom (DoF), and their mechanical properties can change by unknown external loads. Existing works mainly relied on discretization and reduction, suffering from either low accuracy or high computational cost for real-time control purposes. Recently, we presented an infinite-dimensional feedback controller for soft manipulators modeled by partial differential equations (PDEs) based on the Cosserat rod theory. In this study, we examine how to implement this controller in real-time using only a limited number of actuators. To do so, we formulate a convex quadratic programming problem that tunes the feedback gains of the controller in real time such that it becomes realizable by the actuators. We evaluated the controller's performance through experiments on a physical soft robot capable of planar motions and show that the actual controller implemented by the finite-dimensional actuators still preserves the stabilizing property of the desired infinite-dimensional controller. This research fills the gap between the infinite-dimensional control design and finite-dimensional actuation in practice and suggests a promising direction for exploring PDE-based control design for soft robots.
title Stable Real-Time Feedback Control of a Pneumatic Soft Robot
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.04304