An official website of the United States government
Soft continuum manipulators provide a safe alternative to traditional rigid manipulators, because their bodies can absorb and distribute contact forces. Soft manipulators have near infinite potential degrees of freedom, but a limited number of control inputs. This underactuation means soft continuum manipulators often lack either the controllability or the dexterity to achieve desired tasks. In this work, we present an extension of McKibben actuators, which have well-known models, that increases the controllable degrees of freedom using active reconfiguration of the constraining fibers. These Active Fiber Reinforced Elastomeric Enclosures (AFREEs) preform some combination of length change and twisting, depending on the fiber configuration. Experimental results shows that by changing the fiber angles within a range of -30 to 30 degrees and actuating the resulting configuration between 10.3 kPa and 24.1 kPa, we can achieve twists between ± 60 degrees and displacements between -2 and 4 mm. By additionally controlling the fiber lengths and pressure, we can modify the AFREE kinematics further, creating dynamic behaviors and trajectories of actuation. The presented actuator creates the possibility to reconFigure actuator kinematics to meet desired soft robot motions.
more »
« less
This content will become publicly available on November 7, 2025
Learning Controllers for Continuum Soft Manipulators: Impact of Modeling and Looming Challenges
Soft manipulators, renowned for their compliance and adaptability, hold great promise in their ability to engage safely and effectively with intricate environments and delicate objects. Nonetheless, controlling these soft systems presents distinctive hurdles owing to their nonlinear behavior and complicated dynamics. Learning‐based controllers for continuum soft manipulators offer a viable alternative to model‐based approaches that may struggle to account for uncertainties and variability in soft materials, limiting their effectiveness in real‐world scenarios. Learning‐based controllers can be trained through experience, exploiting various forward models that differ in physical assumptions, accuracy, and computational cost. In this article, the key features of popular forward models, including geometrical, pseudo‐rigid, continuum mechanical, or learned, are first summarized. Then, a unique characterization of learning‐based policies, emphasizing the impact of forward models on the control problem and how the state of the art evolves, is offered. This leads to the presented perspectives outlining current challenges and future research trends for machine‐learning applications within soft robotics.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1935312
- PAR ID:
- 10562253
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Advanced Intelligent Systems
- ISSN:
- 2640-4567
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Numerous soft and continuum robotic manipulators have demonstrated their potential for compliant operation in highly unstructured environments or near people. Despite their recent popularity, modeling of their smooth bending deformation remains a challenge. For soft continuum manipulators, the widespread, constant curvature approach to modeling is inadequate for modeling some deformations that occur in practice, such as combined bending and twisting deformations. In this paper, we extend the classical Cosserat rod approach to model a variable-length, pneumatic soft continuum arm. We model the deformation of a pneumatically driven soft continuum manipulator, and the model is then compared against experimental data collected from a three degree of freedom, pneumatically actuated, soft continuum manipulator. The model shows good agreement in capturing the overall behavior of the bending deformation, with mean Euclidean error at the tip of the robot of 2.48 cm for a 22 cm long robot. In addition, the model shows good numerical stability for simulating long duration computations.more » « less
-
Soft continuum manipulators, inspired by squid tentacles and elephant trunks, show promise in allowing robots to safely interact with complex environments. One ongoing problem for these manipulators is torsional stiffness, as continuum manipulators are naturally compliant and cannot actively resist torsional strain. A hybrid actuator that combines molded silicone actuators with 3D printed flexible wave springs is used to overcome this problem. It is shown that the inclusion of the 3D printed wave spring increases actuator torsional stiffness by up to a factor of 10. Further investigation of these structures is performed using both experimentation and simulation. Finally, this hybrid actuator design is used to create a nine‐degree‐of‐freedom soft continuum manipulator, which is used to perform a cantilevered pick‐and‐place task impossible for a traditional soft manipulator of similar size.more » « less
-
Abstract There are two major structural paradigms in robotics: soft machines, which are conformable, durable, and safe; and traditional rigid robots, which are fast, precise, and capable of applying high forces. Here, the paradigms are bridged by enabling soft machines to behave like traditional rigid robots on command. This task is accomplished via laminar jamming, a structural phenomenon in which a laminate of compliant strips becomes strongly coupled through friction when a pressure gradient is applied, causing dramatic changes in mechanical properties. Rigorous analytical and finite element models of laminar jamming are developed, and jamming structures are experimentally characterized to show that the models are highly accurate. Then jamming structures are integrated into soft machines to enable them to selectively exhibit the stiffness, damping, and kinematics of traditional rigid robots. The models allow jamming structures to efficiently meet arbitrary performance specifications, and the physical demonstrations illustrate how to construct systems that can behave like either soft machines or traditional rigid robots at will, such as continuum manipulators that can rapidly have joints appear and disappear. This study aims to foster a new generation of mechanically versatile machines and structures that cannot simply be classified as “soft” or “rigid.”more » « less
-
We present an open-source framework that provides a low barrier to entry for real-time simulation, visualization, and interactive manipulation of user-specifiable soft-bodies, environments, and robots (using a human-readable front-end interface). The simulated soft-bodies can be interacted by a variety of input interface devices including commercially available haptic devices, game controllers, and the Master Tele-Manipulators (MTMs) of the da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK) with real-time haptic feedback. We propose this framework for carrying out multi-user training, user-studies, and improving the control strategies for manipulation problems. In this paper, we present the associated challenges to the development of such a framework and our proposed solutions. We also demonstrate the performance of this framework with examples of soft-body manipulation and interaction with various input devices.more » « less
