Kinematics Modeling and Motion Planning of Continuum Manipulator

Continuum manipulators have been widely used in industry in recent years. However, existing control methods cannot meet the requirements of high efficiency and high precision, especially in highly unstructured operating environments. This paper presents a novel motion control strategy in both broad and narrow spaces for a cable-driven continuum manipulator over the proposed kinematic model. Firstly, we design a 16-DOF hyper-redundant manipulator based on the concept of modularization and lightweight. Secondly, the kinematic model, which interprets the relationships among actuation space, joint space and task space, is established. Not only the equivalent rotation axis method was proposed, but also the FABRIK and FTL algorithms were used to introduce a fast motion planning scheme for solving the IK problem. Finally, simulations over MATLAB demonstrate that the presented scheme is effective for the tip motion control of continuum manipulators.