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We present a discrete-optimization technique for finding feasible robot arm trajectories that pass through provided 6-DOF Cartesian-space end-effector paths with high accuracy, a problem called pathwise-inverse kinematics. The output from our method consists of a path function of joint-angles that best follows the provided end-effector path function, given some definition of ``best''. Our method, called Stampede, casts the robot motion translation problem as a discrete-space graph-search problem where the nodes in the graph are individually solved for using non-linear optimization; framing the problem in such a way gives rise to a well-structured graph that affords an effective best path calculation using an efficient dynamic-programming algorithm. We present techniques for sampling configuration space, such as diversity sampling and adaptive sampling, to construct the search-space in the graph. Through an evaluation, we show that our approach performs well in finding smooth, feasible, collision-free robot motions that match the input end-effector trace with very high accuracy, while alternative approaches, such as a state-of-the-art per-frame inverse kinematics solver and a global non-linear trajectory-optimization approach, performed unfavorably.
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This content will become publicly available on April 23, 2026
Real-Time Trajectory Generation for Soft Robot Manipulators Using Differential Flatness
Soft robots have the potential to interact with sensitive environments and perform complex tasks effectively. However, motion plans and trajectories for soft manipulators are challenging to calculate due to their deformable nature and nonlinear dynamics. This article introduces a fast realtime trajectory generation approach for soft robot manipulators, which creates dynamically-feasible motions for arbitrary kinematically-feasible paths of the robot’s end effector. Our insight is that piecewise constant curvature (PCC) dynamics models of soft robots can be differentially flat, therefore control inputs can be calculated algebraically rather than through a nonlinear differential equation. We prove this flatness under certain conditions, with the curvatures of the robot as the flat outputs. Our two-step trajectory generation approach uses an inverse kinematics procedure to calculate a motion plan of robot curvatures per end-effector position, then, our flatness diffeomorphism generates corresponding control inputs that respect velocity. We validate our approach through simulations of our representative soft robot manipulator along three different trajectories, demonstrating a margin of 23x faster than realtime at a frequency of 100 Hz. This approach could allow fast verifiable replanning of soft robots’ motions in safety-critical physical environments, crucial for deployment in the real world.
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- PAR ID:
- 10593180
- Publisher / Repository:
- IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Lausanne, Switzerland
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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