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Updated: Nov 17, 2025

Manufacturing, Control, and Performance Evaluation of a Gecko-Inspired Soft Robot
Published on: June 10, 2020
Control of differential-drive mobile robots for soft object deformation
Javier Felix-Rendon1, Juan Carlos Bello-Robles2, Rita Q Fuentes-Aguilar1
1Tecnologico de Monterrey, School of Engineering and Sciences, Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico.
Abstract:
The aim of this work is a control scheme implementation to deform a nonrigid object in which deformation dynamics are modeled by the finite element method. The deformation of a soft object is highly difficult to model because of its non-linearity, time-dependency, and material-response characteristics. Thus, the control implementation for Differential Drive Mobile Robots (DDMR) to deform an elastic object, is a challenge. The proposed steps to solve it are: Position-control designed over DDMR kinematics. Alignment-control applied for DDMRs orientation. The desired shape of the object is achieved using two contact points as the control nodes. A centralized vision algorithm was employed in each stage to obtain positions. To show the usefulness of the proposed scheme, numerical simulation, and real-time implementation were carried out.
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