Dynamic Control of Soft Robotic Arm: An Experimental Study

Abstract: In this paper, a reinforced soft robot prototype with a custom-designed actuator-space string encoder are created to investigate dynamic soft robotic trajectory tracking. The soft robot prototype embedded with the proposed adaptive passivity control and efficient dynamic model make the challenging trajectory tracking tasks possible. We focus on the exploration of tracking accuracy as well as the full potential of the proposed control strategy by performing experimental validations at different operation scenarios: various tracking speed and external disturbance. In all experimental scenarios, the proposed adaptive passivity control outperforms the conventional PD feedback linearization control. The experimental analysis details the advantage and shortcoming of the proposed approach, and points out the next steps for future soft robot dynamic control.