Continuum robot actuation by a single motor per antagonistic tendon pair: workspace and repeatability analysis

Abstract Continuum robots for application in medicine are of high interest recent research. However, as most systems literature show complex and large actuator units, setting up such a system can be time consuming, costly results bulky system, unsuitable the spatial requirements given surgical scenarios. In this work, compact, efficient continuum robotic is presented. A pair two antagonistic tendons controlled by single servo motor instead tendon actuation. This way, footprint maintained at minimum size method simpler setup. The resulting 260 mm long robot with 9.9 diameter achieves repeatability an error maximum 1.8 % its length. future work serves basis integration various sensing modalities evaluation control algorithms.