Brandon Caasenbrood

Eindhoven University of Technology | TUE · Department of Mechanical Engineering

In this paper, we present Sorotoki, an open-source toolkit in MATLAB that offers a comprehensive suite of tools for the design, modeling, and control of soft robots. The complexity involved in researching and building soft robots often stems from the interconnectedness of design and control aspects, which are rarely addressed together as a unified...

An electric circuit replacement model is proposed to simulate the key nonlinear dynamics of electro-responsive liquid crystal polymer networks (LCNs). LCNs are known for having great potential to be integrated into smart functional surfaces due to their ability to generate various surface patterns. However, due to their complex molecular dynamics,...

In this work, we discuss the application of energy-based controller design for under-actuated soft robot manipulators. The continuous dynamics of the soft robot are modeled through the differential geometry of Cosserat beams. Using a finite-dimensional truncation, the system can be written as a reduced port-Hamiltonian model that preserves the pass...

Passive and active exoskeletons have been used over recent decades. However, regarding many physiological systems, we see that the majority explore both active and passive elements to minimize energy consumption while retaining proper motion control. In light of this, we propose a design that combines compliant mechanisms as passive support for gra...

The motion complexity and use of exotic materials in soft robotics call for accurate and computationally efficient models intended for control. To reduce the gap between material and control-oriented research, we build upon the existing piece-wise constant curvature framework by incorporating hyperelastic and viscoelastic material behavior. In this...

In recent years, there have been many modeling and control advances in the field of soft robotics, which resulted in a growing interest in practical, real-time applications. To further enable these developments, we present a desktop-sized testing and development platform intended for fast, precise, and reliable (closed-loop) control of pneumatic so...

In this work, we describe an energy-based control method for under-actuated soft manipulators. The continuous dynamics of the soft robot are modeled by the differential geometry of Cosserat beams. Through a finite-dimensional truncation, a reduced port-Hamiltonian model is obtained that preserves desirable passivity conditions. Exploiting the passi...

In this work, we present a novel framework for synthesizing the design of pressure-driven soft robots. Contrary to traditional design methods, a topology optimization scheme is employed to find the optimal soft robotic structure given user-defined requirements. To our knowledge, the combination of pressure-driven topology optimization and soft robo...

Soft robots differ fundamentally from traditional robotics. Due to their composition of soft materials, soft robots are inherently compliant and allow for large continuum-bodied motion. Although some frameworks exist for describing the kinematics, the development of dynamic models intended for control-oriented applications is relatively scarce and,...