How to Model Tendon-Driven Continuum Robots and Benchmark Modelling Performance

Abstract

Tendon actuation is one of the most prominent actuation principles for continuum robots. To date, a wide variety of modelling approaches has been derived to describe the deformations of tendon-driven continuum robots. Motivated by the need for a comprehensive overview of existing methodologies, this work summarizes and outlines state-of-the-art modelling approaches. In particular, the most relevant models are classified based on backbone representations and kinematic as well as static assumptions. Numerical case studies are conducted to compare the performance of representative modelling approaches from the current state-of-the-art, considering varying robot parameters and scenarios. The approaches show different performances in terms of accuracy and computation time. Guidelines for the selection of the most suitable approach for given designs of tendon-driven continuum robots and applications are deduced from these results.

An Efficient Follow-the-Leader Strategy for Continuum Robot Navigation and Coiling

“…The configuration of this section can be defined as an arc with section length si, bending angle θi, and direction angle φi (with positive values when rotating around the Zi-axis counterclockwise). Among the many formulations for continuum robot kinematics [13], in this study we adopt the model in [14] for their limited computational complexity.…”

“…Figure13. Path of the tips of sections 4, 6, and 8 (corresponding to the endeffector) of the snake-like robot acquired by the motion capture system during an uncoiling test, with the black regions estimating the volume occupied by the body of the robot.…”

On the Mathematical Modeling of Slender Biomedical Continuum Robots

“…If the tendons are not fully constrained, other models for may be more appropriate ( Rao et al, 2021 ). What is noteworthy about either length formulation is that the nonconservative generalized forces do not naturally appear.…”

Micrometer Positioning Accuracy With a Planar Parallel Continuum Robot

“…Depending on the structure, Cosserat-rod-based models (Trivedi et al, 2008;Orekhov et al, 2017;Till and Rucker, 2017;Black et al, 2018) or Kirchhoff-rod-based ones (Takano et al, 2017;Altuzarra and Merlet, 2019;Campa et al, 2019) gained consensus because of their ability to predict the shape and forces of the rods. In the case of tendon-actuated continuum structures, Rao et al proposed guidelines to choose a model depending on the targeted application (Rao et al, 2021). Such guidelines do not currently exist for parallel continuum structures.…”