Dynamic Motion Control of Multi-Segment Soft Robots Using Piecewise Constant Curvature Matched with an Augmented Rigid Body Model

Despite the emergence of many soft-bodied robotic systems, model-based feedback control for soft robots has remained an open challenge. This is largely due to the intrinsic difficulties in designing controllers for systems with infinite dimensions. This work extends our previously proposed formulation for the dynamics of a soft robot from two to three dimensions. The formulation connects the soft robot's dynamic behavior to a rigid-bodied robot with parallel elastic actuation. The matching between the two systems is exact under the hypothesis of Piecewise Constant Curvature. Based on this connection, we introduce a control architecture with the aim of achieving accurate curvature and bending control. This controller accounts for the natural softness of the system moving in three dimensions, and for the dynamic forces acting on the system. The controller is validated in a realistic simulation, together with a kinematic inversion algorithm. The paper also introduces a soft robot capable of three-dimensional motion, that we use to experimentally validate our control strategy.