Abstract
The area of soft robotics spans a broad range of robots from flexible joint and flexible link robots to artificial muscle and continuum robots, such as octopus robots. This lecture will address challenges and opportunities that arise in the control of such soft robots. The goal is to identify relevant control problems in soft robotics and to discuss control methodologies that have proven useful in other areas of robotics and that may provide tools to attack control problems in soft robotics. We will discuss various finite and infinite dimensional models of soft robots and discuss control methods for underactuated systems, hybrid and impedance control and passivity-based control methods.
Bio
Mark W. Spong received his doctorate degree in systems science and mathematics in 1981 from Washington University in St. Louis. He has held faculty positions at Lehigh University (1981-82), Cornell University (1982-84), and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1984-2008).
He is currently Professor of Systems Engineering, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and holds the Excellence in Education Chair at the University of Texas at Dallas. From 2008-2017 he was the Dean of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at UT-Dallas. He is also Donald Biggar Willett Professor Emeritus from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Professor Spong is Past President of the IEEE Control Systems Society and past Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Control System Technology. He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of IFAC.
His main research interests are in robotics, mechatronics, and nonlinear control theory. He has authored or coauthored more than 300 technical articles in control and robotics, five books and holds one patent. He has made fundamental contributions in robust and nonlinear control of robot manipulators, teleoperators, bipedal walking robots, and multi-robot systems.
Professor Spong’s notable awards include the 2020 Rufus Oldenberger Medal from the ASME, the 2018 Bode Lecture Prize from the IEEE CSS, the 2016 Nyquist Lecture Prize from the ASME, the 2011 Pioneer in Robotics Award from the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, the first IROS Fumio Harashima Award for Innovative Technologies in 2007, the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Outstanding Paper Award, the Senior Scientist Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Distinguished Member Award from the IEEE Control Systems Society, the John R. Ragazzini and O. Hugo Schuck Awards from the American Automatic Control Council, and the IEEE Third Millennium Medal.
Host: Professor Prashant Mehta
