Abstract

Continuum robots are the biologically inspired robots that mimic the behaviors of mammalian tongues, elephant trunks, and octopus arms.

The drawbacks of two existing designs are examined and a new mechanical design that uses a single latex rubber tube as the central member is proposed, providing a design that is both simple and robust. Next, a novel verification procedure is applied to examine the validity of the proposed model in two different domains of applicability. A two-level electrical control scheme enables rapid prototyping and can be used to control the continuum robot remotely. Next, a new geometrical approach to solve inverse kinematics for continuum type robot manipulators is introduced. Given the tip of a three section robot, a complete inverse kinematics solution is obtained. Finally, the techniques involved in visualization of AirOctor/OctArm in 3D space in real-time are discussed. The algorithm has been tested with several system topologies.

Details

Title
Design, construction, inverse kinematics, and visualization of continuum robots
Author
Neppalli, Srinivas
Year
2008
Publisher
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
ISBN
978-0-549-89498-8
Source type
Dissertation or Thesis
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
304516003
Copyright
Database copyright ProQuest LLC; ProQuest does not claim copyright in the individual underlying works.