Position dynamic control for a tentacle manipulator

The control problem of the spatial tentacle manipulator is presented. The difficulties determined by the complexity of the nonlinear integral-differential equations are avoided by using a very basic energy relationship of this system. Energy-based control laws are introduced by using only the relations that determine the energy stored in the system. A PD controller and a fuzzy controller are discussed. Numerical simulations for spatial and planar tentacle models are presented in order to prove the efficiency of the method.