Grassmann Reinhard M, Rao Priyanka, Peyron Quentin, Burgner-Kahrs Jessica
Continuum Robotics Laboratory, Department of Mathematical and Computational Sciences, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ON, Canada.
Front Robot AI. 2022 Apr 26;9:873446. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2022.873446. eCollection 2022.
We propose a segment design that combines two distinct characteristics of tendon-driven continuum robots, i.e. variable length and non-straight tendon routing, into a single segment by enabling rotation of its backbone. As a result, this segment can vary its helical tendon routing and has four degrees-of-freedom, while maintaining a small-scale design with an overall outer diameter of 7 mm thanks to an extrinsic actuation principle. In simulation and on prototypes, we observe improved motion capabilities, as evidenced by position redundancy and follow-the-leader deployment along spatially tortuous paths. To demonstrate the latter on a physical prototype, a simple, yet effective area-based error measure for follow-the-leader deployment is proposed to evaluate the performance. Furthermore, we derive a static model which is used to underpin the observed motion capabilities. In summary, our segment design extends previous designs with minimal hardware overhead, while either archiving similar accuracy in position errors and planar follow-the-leader deployment, or exhibiting superior motion capabilities due to position redundancy and spatial follow-the-leader deployment.
我们提出了一种节段设计，通过使主干旋转，将肌腱驱动连续体机器人的两个不同特性，即可变长度和非直线肌腱路径，结合到一个节段中。结果，该节段可以改变其螺旋肌腱路径并具有四个自由度，同时由于外部驱动原理，保持了7毫米的整体外径的小尺寸设计。在模拟和原型上，我们观察到运动能力得到了改善，位置冗余和沿空间曲折路径的跟随式部署证明了这一点。为了在物理原型上演示后者，提出了一种简单而有效的基于面积的跟随式部署误差测量方法来评估性能。此外，我们推导了一个静态模型，用于支持观察到的运动能力。总之，我们的节段设计以最小的硬件开销扩展了以前的设计，同时在位置误差和平面跟随式部署方面实现了相似的精度，或者由于位置冗余和空间跟随式部署而表现出卓越的运动能力。
