Soft robotics offers unique advantages for medical applications due to its inherent compliance, adaptability, and safety, making it an ideal technology for endoscopic procedures where frequent interaction with delicate tissues is unavoidable. In these scenarios, accurately monitoring the forces exerted by soft actuators is critical for ensuring safe operation, yet traditional sensing methods often require embedded sensors that complicate design and reduce reliability. This project aims to develop a sensorless force estimation approach by using first-principles modeling of soft actuator dynamics. By monitoring only system input parameters—such as pressure and flow in fluidic-based actuators—the forces acting on or generated by the actuator can be accurately estimated, enabling safe and effective tissue interaction without adding complexity to the robotic system.
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