Shape Modeling of a Parallel Soft Panel Continuum Robot

Abstract

Continuum robots have attracted a lot of attention in the robotic community due to their high dexterity, deformability, and reachability. However, Modeling of such robots could be very complex and challenging. This paper presents a novel continuum robot constructed with soft panels and its shape modeling approach. The Euler-Bernoulli beam theory in large deformation case is used to obtain the deformation curves of the panels. Then the constrained optimization model for the kinematics is established. By solving the model, not only the relationship between the length of panels and the position and orientation of moving platform can be obtained, but also the deformation shapes could be calculated. The good agreement between the simulation results and the experimental results shows that the modeling approach is very effective and accurate.