查看文章

Despite tremendous progress in developing soft robots in recent years, existing systems lack the mobility, model-based control, and motion planning capabilities of their piecewise rigid counterparts. As in conventional robotic systems, the development of versatile locomotion of soft robots is aided by integrating hardware design and control with modeling tools that account for their unique mechanics and environmental interactions. Here, a framework for physics-based modeling, motion planning, and control of an untethered swimming soft robot is introduced. This framework enables co-design in the simulation of robot parameters and gaits to produce effective open-loop behaviors and enables closed-loop planning over motion primitives for feedback control of a soft swimmer. This pipeline uses a discrete elastic rods physics engine that discretizes the soft robot as many stretchable and bendable rods. On hardware …