9 accepted papers
The Cosserat rod theory has become a gold standard for modeling the statics and dynamics of serial and parallel continuum robots. Recently, a weak form of these Cosserat rod models called the geometric variable strain model has been derived where the robot deformations are projected on finite-dimens
This paper addresses durability-aware trajectory planning and tracking strategies for the motion of the platform in an extensible planar tendon-actuated continuum parallel robot (CPR). The proposed planning approach combines the A* algorithm with the Geometric Variable Strain (GVS) static Cosserat r
The inverse kinematic control of soft robots appears as an open challenge that has been the subject of a number of letters presented in the last decade. Some solutions have been provided based on specific assumptions on the robot’s shape or the actuation mechanism. Other more generic approaches are
In this work, the Piecewise Variable-strain (PVS) approach is applied to the case of Concentric Tube Robots (CTRs) and extended to include the tubes' sliding motion. In particular, the currently accepted continuous Cosserat rod model is discretized onto a finite set of strain basis functions. At the
This paper reports methods to compute the equilibrium stances of a new snake-like robot designed to stabilize its head on a free water surface. To adjust rapidly the stability of the robot, this bio-inspired robot can rotate independently each body-shell, and modify the level of immersion of each mo…
We propose a novel variable-strain parametrization for soft manipulators, which discretizes the continuous Cosserat rod model onto a finite set of strain basis functions. This approach generalizes the recently proposed piecewise-constant strain method to the case of non-constant strain sections. As
By manipulation of electric fields, it is possible to detect the presence of foreign objects underwater. The presented work builds upon a previous result, in which was developed a neural network-based methodology allowing to address this detection problem for spherical objects. Hereafter, we show th
This paper deals with the geometrical properties of an ellipsoidal object (aspect ratio, volume, orientation) estimation with an underwater sensor inspired by the uncommon sense of the electric fish. The proposed method first locates the object independently of its geometrical properties thanks to t
Navigation of cluttered underwater environments remains to this day a challenging task in mobile robotics. Applying an electric field to a mobile robot's direct environment and measuring perturbations of this field, one is able to detect the presence of foreign objects in close proximity of the syst…