Hybrid motion control of cable-driven hyper redundant robot considering kinematic and tension optimization

Inspired from bionics, cable-driven hyper redundant robots (CHRRs) have superior dexterity and can be used in the narrow and confined workspace. In this article, a CHRR prototype is designed and described. With transforming the force generated by cables to force screw, the accurate model of cables is established, and then a dynamic model considering the redundancy of joints and tension is derived. Based on multi-solutions of calculating joints motion and tension, an optimization algorithm is derived from the objection functions for avoiding joints angle overrunning and cables overloading. From the optimization algorithm, a control method is proposed to realize dexterous motion with different tension distribution. Finally, the models and control method are validated through simulating motions of the 3D virtual prototype. Simulation results show that the robot can track complex desired motion, as well as varying null-space vector of velocity Jacobin matrix and tension Jacobin matrix, to optimize velocity and tension.