Uniform regulation of a multi-section continuum manipulator

Abstract

Continuum manipulators are robotic manipulators built using one continuous, elastic and highly deformable "backbone", instead of multiple rigid links and joints. In previous work (2000), we illuminated various kinematic and dynamic properties of continuum robots, but the question of controller design remained open. This paper presents a basic result for continuum robots that has long been known for rigid-link robots: a simple PD-plus-feedforward controller can exponentially regulate the position of a manipulator.