Sorotoki is an open-source MATLAB toolkit for soft robotics that includes an array of tools for design, modeling, and control. Due to its scientific diversity, it can be challenging for new researchers to quickly familiarize themselves with multiple scientific areas. With the aim to lower this threshold, Sorotoki aims to incorporate multiple layers of soft robotics research into one compact toolkit. Examples include: continuum mechanics, dynamic systems and control theory, topology optimization, computer graphics, and much more to come! The combination provides a highly flexible programming environment and will hopefully aid the development of novel soft robotic research.

The toolkit is easy to install. The fastest and easiest way to acquire the toolkit is through mpm (Matlab Package Manager). mpm is a simple package manager for Matlab (inspired by pip). You can directly clone the repository using the MPM command in the MATLAB command window:

mpm install sorotokicode --all-paths  % pulls sorotoki from Github

Then, to install, execute the following in the MATLAB command window:

sorotoki cd       % changes dir to installer
sorotoki install  % call sorotoki installer 

Since Sorotoki uses the MATLAB coder toolbox to speed-up computation, you need to build the necessary executables yourself. Simply call the following command to build the toolkit (this might take a while):

sorotoki build    % run c++ compiler

To check if sorotoki is properly installed, you can call the following command to run the testsuite:

sorotoki test    % calls testsuite 

• Implicit modeling with Signed Distance Functions (SDFs),
• Finite element method (FEM) using hyper-elastic materials,
• Topology optimization of (pressure-driven) soft robots,
• Dynamical modeling through geometric theory,
• (NEW!) Real-time control of soft robots via Raspi-interface,
• Fast graphics rendering with responsive textures.

If you are planning on using Sorotoki in your (academic) work, please consider citing the toolkit

@misc{Caasenbrood2020,
  author = {Caasenbrood, Brandon},
  title = {Sorotoki - A Soft Robotics Toolkit for MATLAB},
  year = {2020},
  publisher = {GitHub},
  journal = {GitHub repository},
  howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/BJCaasenbrood/SorotokiCode}},
}