Graphic Simulator for the Visual Control of Hyperredundant Robots

Tentacle manipulators produce changes of configuration using a continuous backbone made of sections which bend. In this paper, a new project for controling a continuum robot is presented. The robotic structure uses cables to transmit forces to the elements of the arm. This new robot is actuated by stepper motors. Due to the difficulties of using distributed sensors along the manipulator structures, it was decided to use a vision system. The vision system is composed by two pan / tilt / zoom cameras and a frame grabber. A graphical simulator was designed and implemented in order to test the robot behavior under certain circumstances. The camera calibration using this graphic simulator is also presented. The term of “camera calibration” in the context of this paper refers to positioning and orienting the two cameras at imposed values. Key-Words: Hyperredundant robots, Visual Control, Graphic Simulator