A Novel Discrete Wire-Driven Continuum Robot Arm with Passive Sliding Disc: Design, Kinematics and Passive Tension Control

Wire-driven continuum manipulators are gaining more attention due to their flexibility and dexterity features. In comparison with traditional manipulators, the continuum structure is compliant and safe for human tissue and is able to easily adapt to the unstructured environment. Despite its advantages, wire-driven mechanisms have a serious problem with tension. While pushing and pulling, the wire loses tension, which leads to an ineffective way of driving the pulleys. Therefore, in this research, we propose a novel discrete continuum robot arm with a passive pre-tension mechanism that avoids the wire tension problem. Moreover, this paper will describe the backbone design of the discrete continuum arm and pre-tension mechanism structure, as well as forward and inverse kinematics and kinetic solutions, with simulation results.