Coupling Field Simulation of Soft Capacitive Sensors Toward Soft Robot Perception

Simulation is a standard tool for robot design, control, and performance analysis. Numerous mature, thoroughly validated methods exist to build fast reliable simulation models traditional rigid robotics platforms. However, when it comes novel soft systems, most existing concern themselves with the dynamics of bodies during actuation, largely disregarding sensory system. Simultaneous sensors actuators essential establishing realistic accurate model in virtual environment. This article proposes pipeline implement coupling field (CFS) capacitive deployed on square arm pneumatic manipulator. The CFS approach can seamlessly integrate mechanical sensing components, enabling us understand sensor behavior better by simulating responses various deformations including bending, inflation, combinations twisting, elongation. We also demonstrate that cost-effective manner acquire large number annotated data be used pretraining perception tasks through two case studies (i.e., applied force estimation deformation classification).