Control-oriented modeling of a polymeric soft robot

This article describes an efficient control-oriented model of a soft robot made of electroactive polymers. The proposed soft robot is constructed from two flexible links and has a multiphysics dynamic model consisting of both an electrochemical and electromechanical model. The electrochemical model is based on a distributed RC line approach, and the electromechanical model, considering the continuum vibration of the robot, is derived based on Hamilton's principle. The governing equation of the soft robot is solved by means of the Rayleigh-Ritz-Meirovitch substructure synthesis method, and the Laplace operator is used to obtain the transfer function of the soft robot as a 2 by 2 multiple-input multiple-output system.