Tentacle Manipulators

TENTACLE MANIPULATORS

This project investigates control, contact reconstruction, and grasp planning for pneumatically actuated, compliant continuum manipulators. The focus is a single-tentacle manipulator that combines manipulation and gripping in one soft robotic structure and is suited to confined, unstructured, or difficult-to-access environments. The main objective is to extend existing control methods for free motion to contact-rich manipulation. Particular emphasis is placed on reconstructing spatially distributed contact areas and forces between the tentacle manipulator and manipulated objects. Model-based methods are combined with sensor information from chamber pressures, inertial measurement units, and/or capacitive bending sensors; data-driven approaches are considered to improve model accuracy and contact estimation. The work covers contact detection and reconstruction, trajectory generation and control, as well as grasp synthesis and execution for objects with different geometries, surfaces, and stiffnesses. The developed methods are validated experimentally in contact and grasping tasks, including a simplified warehouse scenario. The project aims to establish a methodological basis for safe, adaptive, and contact-aware manipulation with soft continuum robots.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Oliver Sawodny
Institute for System Dynamics, University of Stuttgart

RESEARCHER
N.N.

FUNDING
German Research Foundation (DFG)