Sensor-Space Based Robust Kinematic Control of Redundant Soft Manipulator by Learning

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Meng, Yinan, Qian, Kun, Yang, Jiong, Su, Renbo, Li, Zhenhong, Wang, Charlie C. L.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866908461962362880
author Meng, Yinan
Qian, Kun
Yang, Jiong
Su, Renbo
Li, Zhenhong
Wang, Charlie C. L.
author_facet Meng, Yinan
Qian, Kun
Yang, Jiong
Su, Renbo
Li, Zhenhong
Wang, Charlie C. L.
contents The intrinsic compliance and high degree of freedom (DoF) of redundant soft manipulators facilitate safe interaction and flexible task execution. However, effective kinematic control remains highly challenging, as it must handle deformations caused by unknown external loads and avoid actuator saturation due to improper null-space regulation - particularly in confined environments. In this paper, we propose a Sensor-Space Imitation Learning Kinematic Control (SS-ILKC) framework to enable robust kinematic control under actuator saturation and restrictive environmental constraints. We employ a dual-learning strategy: a multi-goal sensor-space control framework based on reinforcement learning principle is trained in simulation to develop robust control policies for open spaces, while a generative adversarial imitation learning approach enables effective policy learning from sparse expert demonstrations for confined spaces. To enable zero-shot real-world deployment, a pre-processed sim-to-real transfer mechanism is proposed to mitigate the simulation-to-reality gap and accurately characterize actuator saturation limits. Experimental results demonstrate that our method can effectively control a pneumatically actuated soft manipulator, achieving precise path-following and object manipulation in confined environments under unknown loading conditions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_16842
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Sensor-Space Based Robust Kinematic Control of Redundant Soft Manipulator by Learning
Meng, Yinan
Qian, Kun
Yang, Jiong
Su, Renbo
Li, Zhenhong
Wang, Charlie C. L.
Robotics
The intrinsic compliance and high degree of freedom (DoF) of redundant soft manipulators facilitate safe interaction and flexible task execution. However, effective kinematic control remains highly challenging, as it must handle deformations caused by unknown external loads and avoid actuator saturation due to improper null-space regulation - particularly in confined environments. In this paper, we propose a Sensor-Space Imitation Learning Kinematic Control (SS-ILKC) framework to enable robust kinematic control under actuator saturation and restrictive environmental constraints. We employ a dual-learning strategy: a multi-goal sensor-space control framework based on reinforcement learning principle is trained in simulation to develop robust control policies for open spaces, while a generative adversarial imitation learning approach enables effective policy learning from sparse expert demonstrations for confined spaces. To enable zero-shot real-world deployment, a pre-processed sim-to-real transfer mechanism is proposed to mitigate the simulation-to-reality gap and accurately characterize actuator saturation limits. Experimental results demonstrate that our method can effectively control a pneumatically actuated soft manipulator, achieving precise path-following and object manipulation in confined environments under unknown loading conditions.
title Sensor-Space Based Robust Kinematic Control of Redundant Soft Manipulator by Learning
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.16842