Modeling and Control of a Pneumatic Morphing Soft Quadrotor based on the SOFA Framework for Dynamic Soft Robotic Simulation

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Caso, F. Labra, Sumathy, V., Ferrentino, P., Vanderborght, B., Haluska, J., Nikolakopoulos, G.
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Caso, F. Labra
Sumathy, V.
Ferrentino, P.
Vanderborght, B.
Haluska, J.
Nikolakopoulos, G.
author_facet Caso, F. Labra
Sumathy, V.
Ferrentino, P.
Vanderborght, B.
Haluska, J.
Nikolakopoulos, G.
contents This article presents a novel SOFA based finite element method for the soft body modeling and the corresponding dynamic simulation and control of a pneumatic morphing soft quadrotor. The proposed modeling preserves the physical interpretability and control structure of traditional quadrotor dynamics, while capturing the complex, time-varying behavior of pneumatically actuated soft arms. In SOFA, the soft pneumatically actuated arms are discretized as a tetrahedral mesh following an elastic material law that produces internal forces adequate to the real dynamic behavior of the body. Pneumatic actuation governed by both periodic and error-based control signals is applied within the internal cavities to analyze the morphing capability. Finally, a proportional-integral controller is proposed to study the controlled dynamic behavior and morphing capabilities of the pneumatic arm, wherein the pneumatic actuation to the soft arm is controlled to achieve the desired target position. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed novel modeling framework and the related controller design.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_21031
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Modeling and Control of a Pneumatic Morphing Soft Quadrotor based on the SOFA Framework for Dynamic Soft Robotic Simulation
Caso, F. Labra
Sumathy, V.
Ferrentino, P.
Vanderborght, B.
Haluska, J.
Nikolakopoulos, G.
Robotics
This article presents a novel SOFA based finite element method for the soft body modeling and the corresponding dynamic simulation and control of a pneumatic morphing soft quadrotor. The proposed modeling preserves the physical interpretability and control structure of traditional quadrotor dynamics, while capturing the complex, time-varying behavior of pneumatically actuated soft arms. In SOFA, the soft pneumatically actuated arms are discretized as a tetrahedral mesh following an elastic material law that produces internal forces adequate to the real dynamic behavior of the body. Pneumatic actuation governed by both periodic and error-based control signals is applied within the internal cavities to analyze the morphing capability. Finally, a proportional-integral controller is proposed to study the controlled dynamic behavior and morphing capabilities of the pneumatic arm, wherein the pneumatic actuation to the soft arm is controlled to achieve the desired target position. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed novel modeling framework and the related controller design.
title Modeling and Control of a Pneumatic Morphing Soft Quadrotor based on the SOFA Framework for Dynamic Soft Robotic Simulation
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.21031