Kinematic Representation of a Biomimetic Squid Soft Robot's Arms in a Simulation Environment

Abstract

Biomimetic robot systems have received attention from researchers and in accordance the implementation of soft robotic arms has been studied. Kinematic and dynamic modeling of robots with infinite degrees of freedom is challenging and a number of methods have been proposed. In this work, a procedure is proposed to represent soft robot arm motion in a simulation environment. A biomimetic squid robot is used as a case study. This robot's soft arms are modeled by using the Piecewise Constant Curvature approach. This model is visualized by discretizing the soft arms into a finite number of rigid-body manipulators in MatLab using its 3D animation toolbox.