Related papers: Task and Configuration Space Compliance of Continu…
This paper considers a combination of actuation tendons and measurement strings to achieve accurate shape sensing and direct kinematics of continuum robots. Assuming general string routing, a methodical Lie group formulation for the shape…
Continuum robots, known for their high flexibility and adaptability, offer immense potential for applications such as medical surgery, confined-space inspections, and wearable devices. However, their non-linear elastic nature and complex…
The inverse kinematics (IK) problem of continuum robots has been investigated in depth in the past decades. Under the constant-curvature bending assumption, closed-form IK solution has been obtained for continuum robots with variable…
Despite the attention that the problem of path planning for tethered robots has garnered in the past few decades, the approaches proposed to solve it typically rely on a discrete representation of the configuration space and do not exploit…
Soft continuum robots achieve complex deformation through elastic equilibrium, making their reachable motions governed jointly by structural design and actuation-induced mechanics. This work develops a general formulation that integrates…
Soft continuum robots can allow for biocompatible yet compliant motions, such as the ability of octopus arms to swim, crawl, and manipulate objects. However, current state-of-the-art continuum robots can only achieve real-time task-space…
Ensuring symmetric stiffness in impedance-controlled robots is crucial for physically meaningful and stable interaction in contact-rich manipulation. Conventional approaches neglect the change of basis vectors in curved spaces, leading to…
Continuum robots with variable compliance have gained significant attention due to their adaptability in unstructured environments. Among various stiffness modulation techniques, layer jamming (LJ) provides a simple yet effective approach…
Contact detection for continuum and soft robots has been limited in past works to statics or kinematics-based methods with assumed circular bending curvature or known bending profiles. In this paper, we adapt the generalized momentum…
Predicting the shape of tendon driven continuum robots (TDCRs) at steady state from actuation remains challenging due to continuous deformation, complex tendon routing, compliance, friction, and fabrication variability. In this paper, we…
Continuum robots are flexible, thin manipulators capable of navigating confined or delicate environments making them well suited for surgical applications. Previous approaches to continuum robot state estimation typically rely on…
Endowing continuum robots with compliance while it is interacting with the internal environment of the human body is essential to prevent damage to the robot and the surrounding tissues. Compared with passive compliance, active compliance…
Continuum robots are typically slender and flexible with infinite freedoms in theory, which poses a challenge for their control and application. The shape sensing of continuum robots is vital to realise accuracy control. This letter…
Multisection continuum arms offer complementary characteristics to those of traditional rigid-bodied robots. Inspired by biological appendages, such as elephant trunks and octopus arms, these robots trade rigidity for compliance, accuracy…
Intelligent robots must be able to perform safe and efficient motion planning in their environments. Central to modern motion planning is the configuration space. Configuration spaces define the set of configurations of a robot that result…
This paper presents a learning-based approach for accurately estimating the 3D shape of flexible continuum robots subjected to external loads. The proposed method introduces a spatiotemporal neural network architecture that fuses…
Using results on the topology of moduli space of polygons [Jaggi, 92; Kapovich and Millson, 94], it can be shown that for a planar robot arm with $n$ segments there are some values of the base-length, $z$, at which the configuration space…
Recently, a new concept for continuum robots capable of producing macro-scale and micro-scale motion has been presented. These robots achieve their multi-scale motion capabilities by coupling direct-actuation of push-pull back-bones for…
Accurate robot kinematics is essential for precise tool placement in articulated robots, but non-geometric factors can introduce configuration-dependent model discrepancies. This paper presents a configuration-dependent kinematic…
Soft robots offer an alternative approach to manipulate inside the constrained space while maintaining the safe interaction with the external environment. Due to its adaptable compliance characteristic, external contact force can easily…