Collision-Aware Fast Simulation for Soft Robots by Optimization-Based Geometric Computing

Self-collision is also employed in the modern design of soft robots to enhance their performance during different tasks. However, developing an efficient and reliable simulator that can handle the collision response well, is still a challenging task in the research of soft robotics. This paper presents a collision-aware simulator based on geometric optimization, in which we develop a highly efficient and realistic collision checking / response model incorporating a hyperelastic material property. Both actuated deformation and collision response for soft robots are formulated as geometry-based objectives. The collisionfree body of a soft robot can be obtained by minimizing the geometry-based objective function. Unlike the FEA-based Figure 1: Pneumatically actuated soft gripper that can effectively grasp physical simulation, the proposed pipeline performs a much objects by large inflation of chambers and the self-collision between lower computational cost. Moreover, adaptive remeshing is neighboring chambers: (a) the physical result on a soft gripper made applied to achieve the improvement of the convergence when by silicone casting and (b) our simulation result that can well predict dealing with soft robots that have large volume variations.