Curvature Tracking of a Double Section Soft Bending Actuator Using MPC Method

The movement control of soft robot manipulators with pneumatic actuators is an emerging and interesting new topic in automatically controlled robots. In this paper, the Model Predictive Control (MPC) method, is proposed to solve the curvature tracking problem of a two link soft robot with bending pneumatic actuators and to further reduce the steady state error and oscillations. First, we calculate a proper mapping matrix between the soft robot and the rigid manipulator with equal dynamics characteristics. After that, the MPC method is used to realize the curvature tracking control of the robot in question. Stability of the proposed MPC method is proven using lyapunov theory of stability. To evaluate the performance of the MPC controller, simulations are performed and the results are compared to the ones obtained from a tuned PID controller. This verifies the effectiveness of the control approach mentioned above for the dynamic control of the soft robot manipulators.