Download PDFOpen PDF in browserTo Enabling Plant-like Movement Capabilities in Continuum ArmsEasyChair Preprint 90144 pages•Date: October 6, 2022AbstractEnabling reaching capabilities in highly redundant continuum soft arms is an active area of research. So far, it has been heavily addressed through the brain-inspired notion of internal models, where sensory-motor spaces are correlated through learning-based computational frameworks. However, this work investigates an innovative source of bio-inspiration, i.e., plants, which can interestingly move towards a desired external stimulus despite the lack of a central nervous system, thereby, opening avenues to the development of a new generation of distributed control strategies for continuum arms. In particular, reaching is achieved through a combination of distributed sensing and curvature regulation. This work is a first translation of moving-by-growing mechanisms in plants intended to endow continuum and soft robotic arms with a novel repertoire of motions that can be exploited to efficiently navigate highly unstructured environments. Keyphrases: Continuum Arm, Proprioception, bio-inspired control, model-free, reaching
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