A distributed control for a grasping function of a hyperredundant arm

The paper focuses on the control problem of a tentacle robot that performs the coil function of grasping. First, the dynamic model of a hyperredundant arm with continuum elements produced by flexible composite materials in conjunction with active-controllable electro-rheological fluids is analyzed. Secondly, both problems, i.e. the position control and the force control are approached. The difficulties determined by the complexity of the non-linear integraldifferential equations are avoided by using a basic energy relationship of this system. Energy-based control laws are introduced for the position control problem. A force control method is proposed, namely the DSMC method in which the evolution of the system on the switching line by the ER fluid viscosity is controlled. Numerical simulations are also presented