Towards Sensorless Soft Robotics: Self-Sensing Stiffness Control of Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

In this article, we present a sensorless stiffness control (SC) architecture for a soft dielectric elastomer (DE) membrane actuator. The method relies on a self-sensing algorithm that exploits measurements of electrical quantities (i.e., membrane voltage and current) to perform a real-time estimatio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on robotics 2020-02, Vol.36 (1), p.174-188
Main Authors: Rizzello, Gianluca, Serafino, Pietro, Naso, David, Seelecke, Stefan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actuators
Algorithms
Detection
Dielectric elastomer (DE)
Elastomers
Force
Integrated circuits
intelligent actuators
interaction control (IC)
Membranes
Robot sensing systems
Robust design
self-sensing
sensorless control
Soft robotics
Stiffness
stiffness control (SC)
Strain
Transducers
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Summary:In this article, we present a sensorless stiffness control (SC) architecture for a soft dielectric elastomer (DE) membrane actuator. The method relies on a self-sensing algorithm that exploits measurements of electrical quantities (i.e., membrane voltage and current) to perform a real-time estimation of DE displacement and force. By combining self-sensing feedback with a SC algorithm, active shaping of the membrane force-displacement response is achieved without introducing additional electro-mechanical sensors in the system, thus, making it possible to design compact, lightweight, and low-cost DE robotic systems. A description of the novel self-sensing scheme is initially performed. To cope with the strong system nonlinearity, a robust design method to synthesize a SC law is subsequently proposed. An extensive experimental campaign is, then, carried out, with the goal of evaluating the performance of both sensor-based and sensorless SC. Quantitative accuracy of both control architectures is finally assessed and compared.
ISSN:1552-3098
1941-0468
DOI:10.1109/TRO.2019.2944592