Novel Kinematics for Continuum Robots

Abstract

In this paper we address the kinematics of hyper-redundant robots known as continuum robots. Though research is not new in this area, there has not been an established kinematic model for these robots. We derive a new kinematic model that uses both differential geometry and the Denavit-Hartenberg procedure with standard redundancy resolution techniques. We give examples in both the planar and spatial cases to demonstrate our kinematic model.