Towards end-to-end co-design for one-shot printable task-specific soft robots

Abstract:Soft robot co-design methods can jointly optimise morphology and control, but the resulting designs are often difficult to manufacture, while manufacturable approaches typically restrict actuator placement or require manual assembly. We present a simulation-based co-design framework that jointly optimises material distribution, pneumatic actuator placement and orientation, and control, while producing designs that can be fabricated monolithically using fused deposition modelling. The framework uses a differentiable 2D plane-stress Material Point Method simulator, incorporating an experimentally validated material model and an empirically derived surrogate model of a 3D-printed inflatable actuator. We demonstrate gradient-based optimisation soft robotic arms for prescribed tip trajectories. Optimised designs are transferred directly from simulation to one-shot monolithic FDM fabrication, with integrated actuators and no post-assembly. Physical experiments demonstrate that the resulting arms reproduce the behaviour predicted in simulation. This framework provides a path from task-level objectives to physically realisable soft robots while retaining substantial freedom over both morphology and actuation.

Robotics (cs.RO)

arXiv:2611.03216 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2611.03216v1 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2611.03216 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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