Simulation of tensile behavior soft robot using MLPG

Abstract

Soft robots are increasingly used in various fields such as medical care, disaster relief, and exploration that interact with human beings. To precisely control the soft robot, accurate prediction according to the input is required. However, since soft robots made of hyperelastic materials have large deformation and nonlinear behavior, it is difficult to obtain accurate values when simulating. Previous researches have simulated the behavior of the soft robot using finite element analysis (FEA). However, when FEA was performed, element distortion and locking phenomena occurred due to large deformation. To compensate such problems, adaptive mesh technique was applied, but the accuracy was not enough due to the phenomenon, which is that stresses among the elements were discontinuous. To overcome the limitation of elements, the meshless methods have been developed to analyze large deformation and nonlinear behavior. Because soft robots are operated by pneumatic or hydraulic pressure, fluid-solid interface (FSI) analysis is required to predict the more accurate behavior. In this paper, we have developed two-way FSI method using MLPG in the meshless methods and predict the behavior of the tension soft robot using this method.