{"paper":{"title":"BiPneu: Design and Control of a Bipolar-Pressure Pneumatic System for Soft Robots","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"BiPneu delivers a bipolar-pressure pneumatic system and dual-mode sliding-mode controller that tracks positive and negative pressure references with lower errors than PID or model predictive control.","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"cs.RO","authors_text":"Alan Gao, Vedant Naik, Xiaobo Tan, Xinyu Zhou, Yu Mei","submitted_at":"2026-05-12T22:54:01Z","abstract_excerpt":"Positive-negative pressure regulation is critical to soft robotic actuators, enabling large motion ranges and versatile actuation modes. However, achieving high-performance regulation across both pressure polarities remains challenging due to asymmetric inflation-deflation dynamics, valve nonlinearities, and switching-induced flow disturbances. This paper presents BiPneu, a scalable and cost-efficient multi-channel bipolar-pressure pneumatic system for soft robots that enables wide-range, accurate, and responsive pressure regulation while providing seamless compatibility with high-level softwa"},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"Extensive simulation and experiments demonstrate the superior performance of DM-SMC in tracking step and sinusoidal pressure references compared with both advanced model predictive controllers and well-tuned PID controllers. Experimental results show average absolute errors of 1.44 kPa in multi-step tests and 4.23 kPa in sinusoidal tracking, corresponding to reductions of 11.9% and 35.6% relative to PID control.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"The hybrid electro-pneumatic model accurately captures asymmetric inflation-deflation dynamics, valve nonlinearities, and switching-induced flow disturbances sufficiently well for the DM-SMC design to generalize beyond the tested conditions.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"BiPneu delivers a scalable bipolar-pressure pneumatic platform and DM-SMC controller that reduces average absolute tracking error to 1.44 kPa on steps and 4.23 kPa on sinusoids versus PID baselines in soft-robot experiments.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"BiPneu delivers a bipolar-pressure pneumatic system and dual-mode sliding-mode controller that tracks positive and negative pressure references with lower errors than PID or model predictive control.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"cd7d9309773dcb745822ea74b09aa87ec88378e7ebfb275ab9cf8d21a548be84"},"source":{"id":"2605.12804","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":"11cd3fce-0ed5-4ec5-a99b-3259f8cea08d","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-14T19:32:53.284708Z","strongest_claim":"Extensive simulation and experiments demonstrate the superior performance of DM-SMC in tracking step and sinusoidal pressure references compared with both advanced model predictive controllers and well-tuned PID controllers. Experimental results show average absolute errors of 1.44 kPa in multi-step tests and 4.23 kPa in sinusoidal tracking, corresponding to reductions of 11.9% and 35.6% relative to PID control.","one_line_summary":"BiPneu delivers a scalable bipolar-pressure pneumatic platform and DM-SMC controller that reduces average absolute tracking error to 1.44 kPa on steps and 4.23 kPa on sinusoids versus PID baselines in soft-robot experiments.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"The hybrid electro-pneumatic model accurately captures asymmetric inflation-deflation dynamics, valve nonlinearities, and switching-induced flow disturbances sufficiently well for the DM-SMC design to generalize beyond the tested conditions.","pith_extraction_headline":"BiPneu delivers a bipolar-pressure pneumatic system and dual-mode sliding-mode controller that tracks positive and negative pressure references with lower errors than PID or model predictive control."},"references":{"count":22,"sample":[{"doi":"","year":2018,"title":"Exploration of underwater life with an acoustically controlled soft robotic fish,","work_id":"583da93d-9614-428e-abcc-68005d30651a","ref_index":1,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2020,"title":"A novel soft robotic glove with positive-negative pneumatic actuator for hand rehabilitation,","work_id":"23379c5f-1520-4471-ad1d-ad4041ec1772","ref_index":2,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2024,"title":"Simultaneous shape reconstruction and force estimation of soft bending actuators using distributed inductive curvature sensors,","work_id":"e5f2bdd4-da83-4817-94b8-6238e1b021c3","ref_index":3,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2022,"title":"Efficient jacobian-based inverse kinematics with sim-to-real transfer of soft robots by learning,","work_id":"d64eb1ea-1205-4a18-9180-25d299049f76","ref_index":4,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2024,"title":"Programmable pressure control in pneumatic soft robots with 2-way 2-state solenoid valves,","work_id":"b0252a16-4fa3-4423-866f-54083dc30565","ref_index":5,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false}],"resolved_work":22,"snapshot_sha256":"d1bc991de7cb33664ac30c35174ae833d078874fbbc9b90e956a93e46f2e541c","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":2,"snapshot_sha256":"7db5175898b742263972784bfb21eb3115435f3c71530c55907ee123028c4fe9"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}