Modeling and Control of a Soft Robotic Arm Based on a Fractional Order Control Approach

Controlling soft robots is a significant challenge due to the nonlinear elastic nature of the soft materials that conform their structure. This paper studies the identification and control problems of a novel two-degrees-of-freedom, tendon-actuated, soft robotic arm. A decoupled identification approach is presented; later, a fractional order control strategy is proposed and tested experimentally, in comparison with PI solutions. The simulation and experimental results show the goodness of the modeling and control approaches discussed.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the identification and control problems of a novel two-degrees-of-freedom, tendon-actuated, soft robotic arm. A decoupled identification approach is proposed, and a fractional order control strategy is experimentally tested and compared with PI solutions. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the discussed modeling and control approaches.