The ‘SOFTBOT’ Project
Station for testing behaviours of soft manipulators and accuracy of modelling such manipulators.
Soft robotics is a relatively young field of robotics dealing with designing and using manipulators made from soft materials. Soft manipulators feature unique kinematics that makes it possible to adapt the shape of the manipulator to the surrounding objects and reach spaces inaccessible to traditional manipulators. These properties, in combination with the by-design safety of contact with the surroundings, make soft robots ideal for use in surgery. The problems of modelling and controlling soft manipulators are very complex because of specific design of such manipulators.
The goal of the ‘SOFTBOT’ project is to build a station for analysing possibilities of adjusting the shape of a soft manipulator and for testing the possibility and quality of restoring its configuration based on intermediate measurements (modelling).
Implementation timeframe: 01/05/2015 – 31/03/2016
Project type: Statutory
Project implementer:
Industrial Research Institute for Automation and Measurements PIAP
