Quasi Static Analysis of Multi-Segment Continuum Robot using Domain Decomposition Method

Abstract

The continuum robot undergoes extremely high deflection when it is actuated. In this paper, mathematical model of continuum robot has been presented. Here, only the quasi-static analysis is considered neglecting the inertial part. One of major components of this kind of continuum robot is the flexible beam. A thorough analysis of highly-flexible beam has been carried out in this work. Main challenge in this context is to solve the equilibrium/governing equations. In this work, a novel way has been explored to handle flexible beam with multiple point-loads. Specifically, problem becomes extremely complex for the analysis of the multi-segment continuum robot. The similar concept of domain decomposition has been employed to integrate the governing equations. Numerical integration is done by Runge-Kutta 5th order method. The nonlinear boundary value problem in each sub-domain has been solved by shooting method by taking help of the bisection technique. An important issue in domain-decomposition is to pass boundary information among the connected sub-domains. This newly developed method is easily implementable and can handle large number of segments without posing any extra difficulty.