Continuum manipulators, inspired by nature, have drawn significant interest within the robotics community. They can facilitate motion within complex environments where traditional rigid robots may be ineffective, while maintaining a reasonable degree of precision. Soft continuum manipulators have emerged as a growing subfield of continuum robotics, with promise for applications requiring high compliance, including certain medical procedures. This has driven demand for new control schemes designed to precisely control these highly flexible manipulators, whose kinematics may be sensitive to external loads, such as gravity. This article presents one such approach, utilizing a rapidly computed kinematic model based on Cosserat rod theory, coupled with sensor feedback to facilitate closed-loop control, for a soft continuum manipulator under tip follower actuation and external loading. This approach is suited to soft manipulators undergoing quasi-static deployment, where actuators apply a follower wrench (i.e., one that is in a constant body frame direction regardless of robot configuration) anywhere along the continuum structure, as can be done in water-jet propulsion. In this article we apply the framework specifically to a tip actuated soft continuum manipulator. The proposed control scheme employs both actuator feedback and pose feedback. The actuator feedback is utilized to both regulate the follower load and to compensate for non-linearities of the actuation system that can introduce kinematic model error. Pose feedback is required to maintain accurate path following. Experimental results demonstrate successful path following with the closed-loop control scheme, with significant performance improvements gained through the use of sensor feedback when compared with the open-loop case.

受大自然启发的连续体机械手引起了机器人社区的极大兴趣。它们可以在传统刚性机器人可能无效的复杂环境中促进运动，同时保持合理的精度。软连续体机械手已成为连续体机器人的一个不断发展的子领域，有望用于需要高度依从性的应用，包括某些医疗程序。这推动了对旨在精确控制这些高度灵活的机械手的新控制方案的需求，这些机械手的运动学可能对外部负载（如重力）敏感。本文介绍了一种这样的方法，利用基于 Cosserat 杆理论的快速计算运动学模型，结合传感器反馈以促进闭环控制，用于在尖端跟随器驱动和外部负载下的软连续体机械手。这种方法适用于进行准静态部署的软机械手，其中执行器在连续结构的任何位置应用随动扳手（即，无论机器人配置如何，都处于恒定的车身框架方向），就像在水射流中一样推进。在本文中，我们将框架专门应用于尖端驱动的软连续机械手。所提出的控制方案采用致动器反馈和姿态反馈。执行器反馈用于调节从动负载并补偿可引入运动学模型误差的执行系统的非线性。需要姿势反馈以保持准确的路径跟随。