Cable Tension Distribution Methods of Cable Driven Serpentine Manipulators

The cable-driven serpentine manipulator has shown great application value in many fields due to its excellent compliance and flexibility. Most of the existing cable-driven serpentine manipulator adopts the position control mode, and the length of the driving cable is unique when the joint angle is determined, but the cable tension can be changed, that is, the cable tension is not unique. unreasonable cable tension can reduce the positioning accuracy of the manipulator and even damage the structure. This paper introduces six cable tension distribution methods to analyze the static equilibrium workspace of the cable-driven serpentine manipulator and compare them with the kinematic workspace. The results show that the cable tension distribution method has a great impact on the static equilibrium workspace of the cable-driven serpentine manipulator. The static equilibrium workspace under the numerical algorithm is much greater than the analytical algorithm, but the calculation speed is far less than that of the analytical algorithm. This paper has a certain reference value for selecting a suitable cable tension distribution method to expand the static equilibrium workspace and improve the working range and control accuracy of the cable-driven serpentine manipulator.