Kinematics decoupling analysis of a hyper-redundant manipulator driven by cables

The mapping relationship between the driving space and the workspace is essential for the precise control of a cable-driven hyper-redundant robot. For a hyper-redundant robot driven by cables, the relationships between the driving space and the joint space and between the joint space and the workspace were studied. A joint-decoupling kinematics analysis method was proposed and a kinematic analysis was presented. Based on the analysis of the coupling effect between the cable-driving space and the joint space, a decoupling analysis of the whole cable-driving space and joint space was conducted to eliminate the coupling effect between the joints, and the mapping relationship between the driving cables and the joint angles was obtained. Given the initial and target orientations of the hyper-redundant robot, the variation law for each joint angle was obtained using quintic polynomial trajectory planning and the pseudo-inverse Jacobian matrix, and then the driving cable variation law could be solved. Based on the results, the joint angle changes and the workspace trajectories were solved in turn. By comparing with the initial trajectory, the simulation results verified the appropriateness of the decoupling analysis.