Color-Based Proprioception of Soft Actuators Interacting with Objects
Rob B.N. Scharff (TU Delft - Materials and Manufacturing)
Rens M. Doornbusch (Student TU Delft)
Eugeni L. Doubrovski (TU Delft - Mechatronic Design)
Jun Wu (TU Delft - Materials and Manufacturing)
Jo M.P. Geraedts (TU Delft - Mechatronic Design)
Charlie C.L. Wang (TU Delft - Materials and Manufacturing, Chinese University of Hong Kong)
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Abstract
Actuators using soft materials feature a large number of degrees of freedom. This tremendous flexibility allows a soft actuator to passively adapt its shape to the objects under interaction. In this paper, we propose a novel proprioception method for soft actuators during real-time interaction with previously unknown objects. First, we design a color-based sensing structure that instantly translates the inflation of a bellow into changes in color, which are subsequently detected by a miniaturized color sensor. The color sensor is small and, thus, multiple of them can be integrated into soft pneumatic actuators to reflect local deformations. Second, we make use of a feed-forward neural network to reconstruct a multivariate global shape deformation from local color signals. Our results demonstrate that deformations of the actuator during interaction, including sigmoid-like shapes, can be accurately reconstructed. The accurate shape sensing represents a significant step toward closed-loop control of soft robots in unstructured environments.