Design and Analysis of a Novel Tendon-less Backbone Robot

A new type of backbone robot is presented in this paper. The core idea is to use a cross shape mechanism with the principle of functioning of the scissors linkages, known as a pantograph. Although this continuum arm acts quite similar to tendon-driven robot, this manipulator does not include any tendon in its structure. This design does not suffer from the weaknesses of the continuum design such as low payload and coarse positioning accuracy. Kinematic model is developed and the equation of motion for this arm is derived by Lagrange's method. The work envelope and the occupied space investigation are supposed to be established on the comparison between tendon-based model as the common backbone models and our proposed idea. The results show the effectiveness of the backbone design.