• iterative learning control
• ilc
• brachiation
• brachiating robot
• soft robot

Reproduction of nature inspired movements has attracted the attention of the robotics community for decades. Across the years, several prototypes have been presented of robots performing brachiation: a locomotion technique used by primates in order to swing and travel across the branches of trees.

In this thesis a novel prototype of brachiating soft robot is presented. Differently from the brachiating devices in literature, the brachiating soft robot presented in this work features elastic actuators with the purpose of improve energy efficiency and robustness.

The robot motion is obtained through the combination of a planning phase in which optimal trajectories are derived to accomplish the brachiation, and an iterative-learning-based control algorithm that tracks the planned trajectories and preserve the soft nature of the robot. The robot has been extensively tested in simulations and preliminary experimental results are presented to validate the proposed approach.