Modeling, Reduction, and Control of a Helically Actuated Inertial Soft Robotic Arm via the Koopman Operator

Understand

Soft robots promise improved safety and capability over rigid robots when deployed in complex, delicate, and dynamic environments.

• However, the infinite degrees of freedom and highly nonlinear dynamics of these systems severely complicate their modeling and control.
• As a step toward addressing this open challenge, we apply the data-driven, Hankel Dynamic Mode Decomposition (HDMD) with time delay observables to the model identification of a highly inertial, helical soft robotic arm with a high number of underactuated degrees of freedom.
• The resulting model is linear and hence amenable to control via a Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR).