A Novel Design of a Contractible, Tubular Continuum Manipulator

Continuum, maybe soft, manipulators or have strong capability in narrow space explorations and operations compared to the rigid links assembled robots. In this paper, we novelly designed a mechanism of continuum manipulator with contractible ability that gives the manipulator bigger workspace, more agile and flexible motion than those without contractible ability. Also, the proposed mechanism have big hollow inner space and light weight. The robotic system is composed of a continuum deforming structure, driving tendons with route parts, and an actuating module. We introduced the design of the mechanism and analyzed the workspace of a one-segment manipulator. Then, a prototype was setup to verify its motion ability.