Optimal Design of Continuum Robots with Reachability Constraints

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Cheong, Hyunmin, Ebrahimi, Mehran, Duggan, Timothy
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Cheong, Hyunmin
Ebrahimi, Mehran
Duggan, Timothy
author_facet Cheong, Hyunmin
Ebrahimi, Mehran
Duggan, Timothy
contents While multi-joint continuum robots are highly dexterous and flexible, designing an optimal robot can be challenging due to its kinematics involving curvatures. Hence, the current work presents a computational method developed to find optimal designs of continuum robots given reachability constraints. First, we leverage both forward and inverse kinematic computations to perform reachability analysis in an efficient yet accurate manner. While implementing inverse kinematics, we also integrate torque minimization at joints such that robot configurations with the minimum actuator torque required to reach a given workspace could be found. Lastly, we apply an estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA) to find optimal robot dimensions while considering reachability, where the objective function could be the total length of the robot or the actuator torque required to operate the robot. Through three application problems, we show that the EDA is superior to a genetic algorithm (GA) in finding better solutions within a given number of iterations, as the objective values of the best solutions found by the EDA are 4-15\% lower than those found by the GA.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_11000
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Optimal Design of Continuum Robots with Reachability Constraints
Cheong, Hyunmin
Ebrahimi, Mehran
Duggan, Timothy
Robotics
Applied Physics
While multi-joint continuum robots are highly dexterous and flexible, designing an optimal robot can be challenging due to its kinematics involving curvatures. Hence, the current work presents a computational method developed to find optimal designs of continuum robots given reachability constraints. First, we leverage both forward and inverse kinematic computations to perform reachability analysis in an efficient yet accurate manner. While implementing inverse kinematics, we also integrate torque minimization at joints such that robot configurations with the minimum actuator torque required to reach a given workspace could be found. Lastly, we apply an estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA) to find optimal robot dimensions while considering reachability, where the objective function could be the total length of the robot or the actuator torque required to operate the robot. Through three application problems, we show that the EDA is superior to a genetic algorithm (GA) in finding better solutions within a given number of iterations, as the objective values of the best solutions found by the EDA are 4-15\% lower than those found by the GA.
title Optimal Design of Continuum Robots with Reachability Constraints
topic Robotics
Applied Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.11000