Design and Implementation of a Cable-Driven Dexterous Continuum Manipulators in Confined Space Usage

The contribution of this investigation is to develop a continuum manipulator design with a two-segment structure design to enable a robot arm to generate a gripper for a target object with a whole-arm grasp. This continuum manipulator can be mounted on a cable-suspended robot (CSR) system as the end-effector to operate as a gripper or inspection tool. This design is mainly valuable in confined spaces. However, the singularity of the parallel mechanism of a cable-suspended robot limits the inclination angle of the suspension platform, consequently restricting the working space is due to the singularity point effect. Continuum manipulators have the feature of continuous bending and infinite node points, and thus can move freely, making them very applicable in confined spaces and compensating the limitations of cable-suspended robots. Experimental results of the proposed novel dexterous continuum manipulators system can hopefully be profitably applied to various systems, such as robot end-effectors, working platforms and inspection and maintenance systems, especially for use in a confined working space.