Kinematics and Manipulability Analysis of a Highly Articulated Soft Robotic Manipulator

Robotica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 868-882
Author(s):  
Mahdi Bamdad ◽  
M. Mehdi Bahri
Keyword(s):  
Constant Curvature ◽  
Granular Media ◽  
Fluid Pressure ◽  
Robotic Manipulator ◽  
Forward Kinematics ◽  
Piecewise Constant ◽  
Variable Curvature ◽  
Continuum Robot ◽  
Manipulability Measure ◽  
Curvature Approximation

SummaryRecently, the idea of applying “jamming” of appropriate media has been exploited for a novel continuum robot design. It is completed by applying vacuum in a robot structure filled with granular media. The backbone deformation and motion are achieved by controlling the fluid pressure. A jammable robotic manipulator does not certainly follow constant curvature during bending, that is, gravitational loads cause section sag. The kinematics describes the deformation of continuum manipulators. This formulation is expected to facilitate additional synthesis and analysis on workspace. This paper presents a Jacobian-based approach to obtain the forward kinematics solution. The proposed kinematic formulation in this paper tries to combine the key advantages of the techniques in constant curvature and variable curvature models. Hence, the deformation of any arbitrary bending is modeled. The workspace synthesis is continued by kinematic analysis, and in this regard, the manipulability measure is computed. This is an important improvement when compared with existing work for this kind of manipulators. It shows how manipulability measure can determine the workspace quality, where usually reachability is used for robot’s capabilities representation. As a result, the forward kinematics and manipulability analysis based on a piecewise-constant-curvature approximation are discussed in the simulation. The simulation has been carried out according to the fabricated experimental robot.

scholarly journals A New Approach for Solving the Inverse Kinematics of Continuum Robot Based on Piecewise Constant Curvature Model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haoran Wu ◽  
Jingjun Yu ◽  
Jie Pan ◽  
Xu Pei
Keyword(s):  
Motion Control ◽  
Constant Curvature ◽  
Inverse Kinematics ◽  
Clustering Method ◽  
Continuum Robots ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Piecewise Constant ◽  
Continuum Robot ◽  
Distinct Sequence ◽  
The Continuum

Abstract The inverse kinematics of continuum robot is an important factor to guarantee the motion accuracy. How to construct a concise inverse kinematics model is very essential for the motion control of continuum robot. In this paper, a new method for solving the inverse kinematics of continuum robot is proposed based on the geometric and numerical method. Assumed that the deformation of the continuum robot is Piecewise Constant Curvature model (PCC), the envelope surface of the continuum robot based on single-segment is modeled and calculated. The clustering method is used to calculate the intersection of the curves. Then, a distinct sequence is designed for solving the inverse kinematics of continuum robot, and it is also suitable for the multi-segment continuum robots in space. Finally, the accuracy of the inverse kinematics algorithm is verified by the simulation and numerical experiment. The experiment results illustrate that this algorithm is with higher accuracy compared with the Jacobian iterative algorithm.

scholarly journals Tactile Perception for Teleoperated Robotic Exploration within Granular Media

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Shengxin Jia ◽  
Veronica J. Santos
Keyword(s):  
Granular Media ◽  
Fluid Pressure ◽  
Tactile Sensor ◽  
Tactile Perception ◽  
Test Accuracy ◽  
Contact State ◽  
Buried Objects ◽  
Media Type ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Internal Fluid

The sense of touch is essential for locating buried objects when vision-based approaches are limited. We present an approach for tactile perception when sensorized robot fingertips are used to directly interact with granular media particles in teleoperated systems. We evaluate the effects of linear and nonlinear classifier model architectures and three tactile sensor modalities (vibration, internal fluid pressure, fingerpad deformation) on the accuracy of estimates of fingertip contact state. We propose an architecture called the Sparse-Fusion Recurrent Neural Network (SF-RNN) in which sparse features are autonomously extracted prior to fusing multimodal tactile data in a fully connected RNN input layer. The multimodal SF-RNN model achieved 98.7% test accuracy and was robust to modest variations in granular media type and particle size, fingertip orientation, fingertip speed, and object location. Fingerpad deformation was the most informative modality for haptic exploration within granular media while vibration and internal fluid pressure provided additional information with appropriate signal processing. We introduce a real-time visualization of tactile percepts for remote exploration by constructing a belief map that combines probabilistic contact state estimates and fingertip location. The belief map visualizes the probability of an object being buried in the search region and could be used for planning.

Static modeling and analysis of soft manipulator considering environment contact based on segmented constant curvature method

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yinglong Chen ◽  
Wenshuo Li ◽  
Yongjun Gong
Keyword(s):  
Contact Force ◽  
Constant Curvature ◽  
Kinematic Model ◽  
Fluid Pressure ◽  
Conservation Equation ◽  
Detection Accuracy ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Comparison Results ◽  
Static Modeling ◽  
Soft Manipulator

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to estimate the deformation of soft manipulators caused by obstacles accurately and the contact force and workspace can be also predicted. Design/methodology/approach The continuum deformation of the backbone of the soft manipulator under contact is regarded as two constant curvature arcs and the curvatures are different according to the fluid pressure and obstacle location based on piecewise constant curvature framework. Then, this study introduces introduce the moment balance and energy conservation equation to describe the static relationship between driving moment, elastic moment and contact moment. Finally, simulation and experiments are carried out to verify the accuracy of the proposed model. Findings For rigid manipulators, environmental contact except for the manipulated object was usually considered as a “collision” which should be avoided. For soft manipulators, an environment is an important tool for achieving manipulation goals and it might even be considered to be a part of the soft manipulator’s end-effector in some specified situations. Research limitations/implications There are also some limitations to the presented study. Although this paper has made progress in the static modeling under environmental contact, some practical factors still limit the further application of the model, such as the detection accuracy of the environment location and the deformation of the contact surface. Originality/value Based on the proposed kinematic model, the bending deformation with environmental contact is discussed in simulations and has been experimentally verified. The comparison results show the correctness and accuracy of the presented SCC model, which can be applied to predict the slender deformation under environmental contact without knowing the contact force.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document