Model Based Position Control of Soft Hydraulic Actuators

• Main Authors: Runciman, Mark, Franco, Enrico, Avery, James, Baena, Ferdinando Rodriguez y, Mylonas, George
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 22-02-2023
• Subjects: Computer Science - Robotics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2302.11311

In this article, we investigate the model based position control of soft
hydraulic actuators arranged in an antagonistic pair. A dynamical model of the
system is constructed by employing the port-Hamiltonian formulation. A control
algorithm is designed with an energy shaping approach which accounts for the
pressure dynamics of the fluid. A nonlinear observer is included to compensate
the effect of unknown external forces. Simulations demonstrate the
effectiveness of the proposed approach, and experiments achieve positioning
accuracy of 0.043 mm with a standard deviation of 0.033 mm in the presence of
constant external forces up to 1 N.