Simulation of a soft robot with gazebo

  • Subject:Soft Robot Simulation
  • Type:Mastersthesis
  • Supervisor:

    Witucki, Linus

  • Links:Tender
  • During this thesis, a simulation of a soft robot based on the
    piece-wise constant curvature model should be developed.

MOTIVATION:

Human-robot collaboration is increasingly becoming a crucial area of research within the context of Industry 4.0. It promises to combine the repeatability and precision of robots with the flexibility and decision-making skills of humans. Therefore, robots are being developed that are small, light and have torque sensors implemented to make them safe for close physical coupling with humans. But the safety is only guaranteed through the sensors and software. In a fail-state, the robot can still harm the human. As a result, a completely new kind of robot emerged, the soft robot. These robots are developed with the safety by design concept in mind. Mostly, they consist of soft materials like cloth or silicon and are actuated pneumatically instead of with motors. Such robots are inherently safe for direct human-robot coupling. An example of a soft robot can be seen in Figure 1. To make the deployment of these robots easier simulation tools are required. One such simulation should be developed during the course of this thesis.

GOALS:

The goal of the thesis is the development of a Modular simulation for a soft robot. The robot is based on the piece-wise constant curvature model and consists of multiple segments. Each segment has the constraint of a constant curvature (see Figure 2). Gazebo in combination with ROS2 should be used as a framework for curvature
the simulation

HELPFUL PRIOR KNOWLEDGE:

  • Soft Robotics
  • Robotics
  • ROS2
  • Gazebo
Figure 1: Soft robot @Festo
Figure 2: Piece-wise constant curvature
Figure 3: Gazebo