Dynamic Modelling and Task-space Control of Vine-like Soft Growing Robots

Soft-growing robots are promising for a variety of applications, such as navigating and inspecting confined and challenging environments. These robots can elongate up to tens of meters and have morphological adaptation and tip-extension capabilities. However, evaluating their performance across various design aspects or environmental conditions can be difficult due to their long manufacturing times. In this paper, we present a computationally efficient dynamics model derived using the Euler-Lagrange equation for a class of soft-growing robots known as “vine robots.” alongside a PD feedback control with gravity compensation. We have performed simulation experiments to validate both the dynamics model and the PD feedback control. The results of these experiments can provide valuable insights for future model-based feedback control design and simulation-based performance evaluation.