arXiv subjects

Leonardo Bettini

Publications and source records attributed to Leonardo Bettini.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Nonlinear Spectral Modeling and Control of Soft-Robotic Muscles from Data

Artificial muscles are essential for compliant musculoskeletal robotics but complicate control due to nonlinear multiphysics dynamics. Hydraulically amplified electrostatic (HASEL) actuators, a class of soft artificial muscles, offer high performance but exhibit memory effects and hysteresis. Here we present a data-driven reduction and control strategy grounded in spectral submanifold (SSM) theory. In the adiabatic regime, where inputs vary slowly relative to intrinsic transients, trajectories rapidly converge to a low-dimensional slow manifold. We learn an explicit input-to-output map on this manifold from forced-response trajectories alone, avoiding decay experiments that can trigger hysteresis. We deploy the SSM-based model for real-time control of an antagonistic HASEL-clutch joint. This approach yields a substantial reduction in tracking error compared to feedback-only and feedforward-only baselines under identical settings. This record-and-control workflow enables rapid characterization and high-performance control of soft muscles and muscle-driven joints without detailed physics-based modeling.

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arXiv2025

Data-Driven Nonlinear Model Reduction to Spectral Submanifolds via Oblique Projection

The dynamics in a primary Spectral Submanifold (SSM) constructed over the slowest modes of a dynamical system provide an ideal reduced-order model for nearby trajectories. Modeling the dynamics of trajectories further away from the primary SSM, however, is difficult if the linear part of the system exhibits strong non-normal behavior. Such non-normality implies that simply projecting trajectories onto SSMs along directions normal to the slow linear modes will not pair those trajectories correctly with their reduced counterparts on the SSMs. In principle, a well-defined nonlinear projection along a stable invariant foliation exists and would exactly match the full dynamics to the SSM-reduced dynamics. This foliation, however, cannot realistically be constructed from practically feasible amounts and distributions of experimental data. Here we develop an oblique projection technique that is able to approximate this foliation efficiently, even from a single experimental trajectory of a significantly non-normal and nonlinear beam.

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arXiv2023

Model Reduction to Spectral Submanifolds in Non-Smooth Dynamical Systems

We develop a model reduction technique for non-smooth dynamical systems using spectral submanifolds. Specifically, we construct low-dimensional, sparse, nonlinear and non-smooth models on unions of slow and attracting spectral submanifolds (SSMs) for each smooth subregion of the phase space and then properly match them. We apply this methodology to both equation-driven and data-driven problems, with and without external forcing.

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