Characteristics identification of continuum robots for exact modeling

Continuum robots do not have any joint in contrast to traditional articulated robots. Instead, these robots can bend, twist and stretch their backbone, to shape desired configurations and end-effector position. Therefore, exact modeling of these robots is a challenging problem, particularly in spatial deformations. This paper suggests identification of some mechanical characteristics of the backbone of continuum robots, to achieve accurate results. The importance of identification of characteristics, such as undeformed shape and modulus of elasticity, will be discussed. Then, some methods to identify these characteristics are presented. Theory of Cosserat Rod will be introduced and used for modeling continuum robotic arms in this paper. Finally, the proposed approach is used for a given robot, and the model obtained based on the identified parameters will be validated by experimental results.