Analysis and initial experiments for a novel elephant's trunk robot

Abstract

The idea of studying tentacle and trunk type biological manipulation is not new, but there has been little progress in the development and application of physical devices t o simulate these types of manipulation. Our research in this area is centered o n a novel 'elephant trunk' robot. In this paper, we review the construction of the robot and how it compares t o biological manipulators. W e then apply our previously designed kinematic model t o describe the kinematics of the robot. W e finish by providing some examples of intelligent manipulation using the robot.

Control of a multijoint manipulator "Moray arm"

“…As shown in (11)- (14), there are four constraints, and the total independent parameters, thus, are (15) If these variables are expressed by a coefficient vector , an objective performance function can be expressed as and the optimal motion is derived by adjusting the coefficient vector by steepest ascent.…”

“…Nevertheless, those contrivances have not yet fully satisfied the specification required in practical applications. Recently, some hyper-redundant manipulators were developed [10]- [14], and many control methods were also proposed [15]- [21]. However, these works were limited to the fixed-base hyper-redundant manipulator but not the moved-base one, and no work on how to effectively use the driven base to reduce the arm weight itself was performed.…”

An effective methodology to solve inverse kinematics of electroactive polymer actuators modelled as active and soft robotic structures

“…When the number of links in the manipulator is high enough and link lengths are small enough, the manipulator can be treated as a soft robotic manipulator. There are some studies on such robotic systems inspired from nature in which the working mechanisms of an octopus arm, an eel [14,15], an elephant trunk [16][17] and a snake [20] are mimicked. Following similar modelling principles, Suzumori et al developed a passive flexible micro-actuator fabricated from a fibre reinforced rubber which is powered by air pressure [19].…”

“…Following similar modelling principles, Suzumori et al developed a passive flexible micro-actuator fabricated from a fibre reinforced rubber which is powered by air pressure [19]. These devices are built by conventional actuation means such as tendons, pneumatic actuators, servo motors and joints [20] or a passive material such as a reinforced rubber [16,17,19]. In the literature, kinematic models are established for such soft and hyper-redundant robotic systems using a so-called backbone curve approach [20][21][22][23][24].…”

Kinematic analysis of electroactive polymer actuators as soft and smart structures with more DoF than inputs

“…When the number of links in the manipulator is high enough, the manipulator can be treated as a soft robotic manipulator. There are some studies on such robotic systems inspired from nature in which the working mechanisms of an octopus arm, an eel [2,3], an elephant trunk [4][5][6] and a snake [7] are mimicked. These devices are built by conventional actuation means such as tendons, pneumatic actuators etc.…”