An iteratively optimized resolution to hyper redundancy for dissimilarly doped compliant IPMC actuators

Abstract Soft-robotics is gradually emerging as one of the promising fields of research and innovation. Owing to the blend of material-chemistry and conventional mechanics, complex motions have been successfully generated by flexible polymeric composites that act upon external activation stimuli. However, lack of robust deterministic models which can command reliable actuator performance, hinder their widespread deployments in diverse paradigms. The present article seeks to address the argument by modelling Ionic Polymer Metal Composites (IPMC) as multi-segmented chains of connected rigid bodies. A Cyclic-Coordinate-Descent (CCD) based Inverse Kinematic solver is employed to resolve the redundancy, by minimizing an objective function in joint space at gradual iterative steps. The algorithm is validated for its ability to model dissimilarly doped polymeric curvatures bearing distinct spatial postures. The 2-D shape estimation problem is addressed to generate patterns akin to original IPMCs for deployment on potential applications that anticipate a foresight of actuator geometry.