Exploration and Inspection with Vine-Inspired Continuum Robots

Abstract

In this paper, we show how structures and strategies employed by thin-stemmed plants can be adapted to improve robot access to unstructured and congested environments. Specifically, we show how the use of vine-inspired movement strategies can enhance long thin continuum robot exploration and inspection operations. We introduce a new theoretical plant growth-inspired approach for modeling and motion generation of continuum robot backbones. The approach is demonstrated in numerous experiments including inspection within a high fidelity, full-scale mock-up of the International Space Station at NASA Johnson Space Center, using novel robot tendril hardware.