Abstract
Many organisms achieve locomotion through undulatory traveling-wave motions, both on land (e.g., snakes, caterpillars, and worms) and underwater (e.g., eels and flagellar single-celled organisms). Recently, caterpillar locomotion has been modeled using the theory of planar discrete elastic rods (PDER) and open-loop control. This work considers a planar discrete elastic rod model with closed-loop control over the intrinsic material parameters of length and curvature distributed along its length. We introduce local curvature feedback control laws to drive the shape of the robot to a desired traveling-wave reference trajectory, where the phase of the wave is determined via a central pattern generator or via distributed control with a circulant communication topology. Through numerical simulations utilizing simple models of fluid–body interaction forces we examine undulatory eel-like swimming gaits that give rise to net forward motion. These results show promise for the design of distributed feedback control laws in modular soft robotic systems.
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This work was supported in part by ONR Grant No. N000141712063.
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Scott, W.L., Prakash, P.J., Paley, D.A. (2021). Distributed Control of a Planar Discrete Elastic Rod for Eel-Inspired Underwater Locomotion. In: Paley, D.A., Wereley, N.M. (eds) Bioinspired Sensing, Actuation, and Control in Underwater Soft Robotic Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50476-2_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50476-2_14
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