Induced Vibrations of Soft Robotic Manipulators for Controller Design and Stiffness Estimation

Soft robotic systems are primarily characterized by their low stiffness properties. However, for these high dimension nonlinear systems, it becomes increasingly difficult to define and estimate stiffness properties. This paper presents a methodology to estimate the dominant compliance of a soft robotic manipulator using only motion information. We show how this information can be used for input shaping to suppress unwanted vibrations during point to point motion. Furthermore the methodology can be used to assess manipulator design and stiffening mechanisms.