Dynamic Control of Curve-Constrained Hyper-Redundant Manipulators

Hyper-redundant manipulators have high number of kinematic degrees of freedom, and possess unconventional features such as the ability to enter narrow spaces while avoiding obstacles. To control these hyper-redundant manipulators accurately, manipulator dynamics should be considered. This is, however, time-comsuming and makes implementation of real-time control difficult. In this paper, we propose a dynamic control scheme for hyper-redundant manipulators, which is based on analysis in defined posture space where three parameters were used to determine the manipulator posture. Manipulator dynamics are modeled on the parameterized form with the parameter of the posture space path. The posture space path-tracking feed-forward controller is then formulated on the basis of a parameterized dynamic equation. Computer simulation, in which a hyper-redundant manipulator traces the posture space path well by using the proposed feed-forward controller, proved that the hyper-redundant manipulator tracks the workspace path accurately.