title: Design, modeling and control of a pneumatically actuated manipulator inspired by biological continuum structures.
abstract: Biological tentacles, such as octopus arms, have entirely flexible structures and virtually infinite degrees of freedom (DOF) that allow for elongation, shortening and bending at any point along the arm length. The amazing dexterity of biological tentacles has driven the growing implementation of continuum manipulators in robotic systems. This paper presents a pneumatic manipulator inspired by biological continuum structures in some of their key features and functions, such as continuum morphology, intrinsic compliance and stereotyped motions with hyper redundant DOF. The kinematics and dynamics of the manipulator are formulated and identified, and a hierarchical controller taking inspiration from the structure of an octopus nervous system is used to relate desired stereotyped motions to individual actuator inputs. Simulations and experiments are carried out to validate the model and prototype where good agreement was found between the two.
authors.affiliation: Department of Advanced Robotics, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Morego 30, 16163 Genova, Italy. rongjie.kang@gmail.com
authors.forename: Rongjie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: David T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Branson
authors.forename: Tianjiang
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Emanuele
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Guglielmino
authors.forename: Darwin G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Caldwell
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D032701:Biomimetics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005121:Extremities / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D049831:Octopodiformes / Q000502:physiology*; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation*