Continuum Surrogate Software Interface for Teleoperation of Continuum Robots

摘要

This thesis presents a novel teleoperation interface for continuum robots. Previous tele-operation interface methods for continuum robots did not include a natural mapping due to a degree-of-freedom mismatch, using non continuum input devices with fewer degrees-of-freedom than the robot that was being controlled. The approach introduced in this thesis involves creating a 3D model of the robot using graphics libraries and a continuum kinematic model, then manipulating that graphical 3D model on screen to directly control the continuum robot. This thesis details the development of both the model and software. The teleoperation interface was developed specifi-cally for a nine degree-of-freedom pneumatically-driven extensible continuum robot (OctArm), but it applies to any continuum robot with an arbitrary number of sections due to its modular design. Experiments using the aforementioned system on two different continuum robots are reported and areas for future work and improvement are detailed.