Statics of Continuum Space Manipulators With Nonconstant Curvature via Pseudorigid-Body 3R Model

Continuum space manipulators have wide application prospect in the complex space environment with small space. Efficient and accurate static models are very important for continuum manipulators. However, the existing static models of cable-driven continuum manipulators, which are based on theories of elasticity, are often very complex and not conducive to efficient computing. In this work, the cable-driven continuum manipulator is equivalent to the traditional rigid one by the pseudorigid-body 3R model. We establish the static equation of the continuum manipulator, which takes into account the effects of friction, multi-segment coupling, and external loads. The calculation speed of the static equation obtained by the proposed method is 16.52 times that of obtained by the traditional integration method. Then, the effects of the magnitude and direction of the friction on the curvature and configuration of the manipulator are discussed, respectively. The influences of the configuration and stiffness of the manipulator on the coupling between the segments are also studied. Through the coupling analysis of different stiffness, we give some advice to the design of multi-segment continuum manipulators. Finally, the experiments are made through a two-segment continuum manipulator to validate the proposed static model. The maximum position error between the simulation and experimental results is 5.57%.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-ND

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