Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Jones, Bryan A.

Committee Member

Hansen, Eric A.

Committee Member

Morris, Thomas H.

Date of Degree

12-13-2008

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Electrical Engineering

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

James Worth Bagley College of Engineering

Department

Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering

Abstract

Continuum robots are the biologically inspired robots that mimic the behaviors of mammalian tongues, elephant trunks, and octopus arms. These robots feature a backboneless structure similar to their biological counterparts, such as termed muscular hydrostats. The drawbacks of two existing designs are examined and a new mechanical design that uses a single latex rubber tube as the central member is proposed, providing a design that is both simple and robust. Next, a novel verification procedure is applied to examine the validity of the proposed model in two different domains of applicability. A two-level electrical control scheme enables rapid prototyping and can be used to control the continuum robot remotely with a joystick via a Local Area Network (LAN). Next, a new geometrical approach to solve inverse kinematics for continuum type robot manipulators is introduced. Given the tip of a three-section robot, end-points of section 1 and section 2 are computed, and a complete inverse kinematics solution for a multisection continuum robot is then achieved by applying inverse kinematics to each section continuum trunk. Moreover, the algorithm provides a solution space rather than a single valid solution. Finally, the techniques involved in visualization of AirOctor/OctArm in 3D space in real-time are discussed.The algorithm has been tested with several system topologies.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/17005

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