Kinematic analysis of tendon-driven robotic mechanisms using oriented graphs

Summary. In this paper, the kinematic structure of tendon-driven robotic mechanisms is investigated with the aid of oriented graphs. The relation between the graph representation of the kinematic structure and the mechanism is established. It is shown that the kinematic structure of tendon-driven kinematic chains is similar to that of robotic bevel-gear trains, and angular velocity equations of tendon-driven robotic mechanisms can be systematically obtained from the graph representation of the kinematic structure by using the concept of fundamental circuit equations. The theory is demonstrated by the kinematic analysis of two articulated robotic mechanisms.