Exact Task Execution in Highly Under-Actuated Soft Limbs: An Operational Space Based Approach

Recently, the development of soft robots is imposing a change of prospective in several aspects of design and control, moving the robotic field closer to the natural world. Soft robots, like many animals, are often built of continuously deformable elements, and are consequently characterized by a hi...

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Main Authors: Santina, Cosimo Della, Pallottino, Lucia, Rus, Daniela, Bicchi, Antonio
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134779
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author Santina, Cosimo Della
Pallottino, Lucia
Rus, Daniela
Bicchi, Antonio
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Santina, Cosimo Della
Pallottino, Lucia
Rus, Daniela
Bicchi, Antonio
author_sort Santina, Cosimo Della
collection MIT
description Recently, the development of soft robots is imposing a change of prospective in several aspects of design and control, moving the robotic field closer to the natural world. Soft robots, like many animals, are often built of continuously deformable elements, and are consequently characterized by a highly under-actuated input space. In this letter we prove that given a generic nonlinear task to be accomplished by a soft robot - as e.g., the positioning of its end effector in space - a linear actuation space with the size of the task itself is already sufficient to achieve the goal. We then introduce the dynamically consistent projector into synergistic space, which can be used to convert controllers designed in operational space, to work in the under-actuated case. This enables a direct translation of control strategies from classic to soft robotics. Leveraging on this result, we present the first dynamic feedback controller for trunk-like soft robots taking in account nonconstant deformations of the soft body. We present simulations showing that using this controller it is possible to track a prescribed dynamic evolution of the robot's tip with zero error at steady state, both in planar and 3-D case with gravity.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1347792023-02-23T20:26:18Z Exact Task Execution in Highly Under-Actuated Soft Limbs: An Operational Space Based Approach Santina, Cosimo Della Pallottino, Lucia Rus, Daniela Bicchi, Antonio Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Recently, the development of soft robots is imposing a change of prospective in several aspects of design and control, moving the robotic field closer to the natural world. Soft robots, like many animals, are often built of continuously deformable elements, and are consequently characterized by a highly under-actuated input space. In this letter we prove that given a generic nonlinear task to be accomplished by a soft robot - as e.g., the positioning of its end effector in space - a linear actuation space with the size of the task itself is already sufficient to achieve the goal. We then introduce the dynamically consistent projector into synergistic space, which can be used to convert controllers designed in operational space, to work in the under-actuated case. This enables a direct translation of control strategies from classic to soft robotics. Leveraging on this result, we present the first dynamic feedback controller for trunk-like soft robots taking in account nonconstant deformations of the soft body. We present simulations showing that using this controller it is possible to track a prescribed dynamic evolution of the robot's tip with zero error at steady state, both in planar and 3-D case with gravity. 2021-10-27T20:09:08Z 2021-10-27T20:09:08Z 2019 2019-07-17T15:32:57Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134779 en 10.1109/LRA.2019.2907412 IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Other repository
spellingShingle Santina, Cosimo Della
Pallottino, Lucia
Rus, Daniela
Bicchi, Antonio
Exact Task Execution in Highly Under-Actuated Soft Limbs: An Operational Space Based Approach
title Exact Task Execution in Highly Under-Actuated Soft Limbs: An Operational Space Based Approach
title_full Exact Task Execution in Highly Under-Actuated Soft Limbs: An Operational Space Based Approach
title_fullStr Exact Task Execution in Highly Under-Actuated Soft Limbs: An Operational Space Based Approach
title_full_unstemmed Exact Task Execution in Highly Under-Actuated Soft Limbs: An Operational Space Based Approach
title_short Exact Task Execution in Highly Under-Actuated Soft Limbs: An Operational Space Based Approach
title_sort exact task execution in highly under actuated soft limbs an operational space based approach
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134779
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