4 accepted papers
Continuum robots have long held a great potential for applications in inspection of remote, hard-to-reach environments. In future environments such as the Deep Space Gateway, remote deployment of robotic solutions will require a high level of autonomy due to communication delays and unavailability o…
Developments of robot arms are countless, but there has been little focus on robot surfaces for the reshaping of a habitable space—especially compliant surfaces. In this paper we introduce a novel, tendon-driven, robot surface comprised of aggregated, overlapping panels organized in a herringbone pa…
We discuss motion planning in the configuration spaces of robots containing continuum elements. The configuration space structure of extensible continuum sections is first analyzed, with practical constraints unique to continuum elements identified. The results are applied to generate the configurat…
In this paper, we show how structures and strategies employed by thin-stemmed plants can be adapted to improve robot access to unstructured and congested environments. Specifically, we show how the use of vine-inspired movement strategies can enhance long thin continuum robot exploration and inspect…