Design for shape control of tensegrities

This paper proposes and demonstrates procedures to optimally design tensegrity structures actuation, based on closed loop shape control requirements, while at the same time a feasible path for realizing a desired shape is synthesized. The procedures are employing different optimization based formulations of a set of requirements needed for shape control. The specific procedure demonstrated is based on a mixed integer linear programming formulation, one of the simplest possible. It is possible to formulate the design problem more generally, but then the computations become more involved, inhibiting a real time implementation of the procedure. The demonstration is for a simple planar tensegrity, but the procedures can be applied to more general structures without modification