# A Validated Physical Model For Real-Time Simulation of Soft Robotic Snakes

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a validated physics-based model for real-time simulation of soft robotic snakes, enabling accurate and interactive control of complex soft actuators using GPU acceleration.

## Contribution

A novel constraint-based dynamics model for pneumatic soft actuators that accounts for internal pressure, latency, and damping, validated on a full soft robotic snake.

## Key findings

- Model accurately predicts static deformation.
- Model effectively simulates dynamic locomotion.
- GPU acceleration enables real-time interactive control.

## Abstract

In this work we present a framework that is capable of accurately representing soft robotic actuators in a multiphysics environment in real-time. We propose a constraint-based dynamics model of a 1-dimensional pneumatic soft actuator that accounts for internal pressure forces, as well as the effect of actuator latency and damping under inflation and deflation and demonstrate its accuracy a full soft robotic snake with the composition of multiple 1D actuators. We verify our model's accuracy in static deformation and dynamic locomotion open-loop control experiments. To achieve real-time performance we leverage the parallel computation power of GPUs to allow interactive control and feedback.