Hybrid Vision/Force Control of Soft Robot Based on a Deformation Model

Soft robots are more safe than rigid robots in tasks with environmental interactions. To implement the interaction control for soft robots, this article proposes a hybrid vision force controller. The control law is based on a deformation model, which describes the deformation and the configuration of the soft robot under the effect of gravity and force applied on the tip. To control the motion of the tip, the Jacobian of soft robots is calculated to describe the actual relationship between actuation and tip motion. Then, the vision and force feedback are used to implement visual servo in motion-free space and force control in motion-constraint space. The stability of the controller is verified both theoretically and experimentally.