Inverse Kinematics of a Fabric-reinforced Inflatable Soft Robot

This paper describes a method to calculate the inverse kinematics for a fabric-reinforced inflatable soft robot using measurements from several motion-tracker sensors along its body. The position and orientation information provided by the sensors in the three-dimensional space is used to calculate a finite set of configuration variables. These variables are based on the recently developed Disc-Thread model that mathematically captures the current pose of the soft continuum robot. This method, based on fundamental geometric and trigonometric functions, allows authors to reconstruct this class of soft robots from the sensor measurements, returning these configuration variables at each instant needed for control analysis and design. The proposed method is illustrated through experiments with the soft robot operating in free space and receiving external forces from various directions.