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Over the past several years, there has been a rapidly expanding interest in the study and construction of a new class of robot manipulators which utilize high degree of freedom, or continuous, backbone structures. In this paper, we consider and illustrate some basic properties of a class of "hyper-redundant" robots, known as "continuum" robots. We base our analysis around remotely-driven, tendon-actuated manipulators, such as the Rice/Clemson "Elephant's Trunk". We discuss such issues as the kinematic model, the relationship between tendon lengths and bending, and desirable design constraints for continuum robot mechanisms.
Gravagne et al. (Thu,) studied this question.