Abstract Continuum manipulators typically work in a constrained environment and rely on body compliance to conform around and interact with obstacles. The force operation capability of the continuum manipulators presents significant challenges for practical applications. In order to realize stable operations at multi-position contacts under coupling position-force constraints and improve the operational flexibility of multi-segment cable-driven continuum manipulators, coordinated variable impedance control at multiple contacting points along the continuum manipulators is proposed in this paper. By the aids of an external load estimator and a variable impedance controller in configuration space, the multi-segment cable-driven continuum manipulators based on pseudo-rigid-body modeling method can achieve coordinated variable impedance control in operation space. The stability of the external load estimator and the controller is analyzed. Numerical simulations and experiments also demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed control scheme for the multi-segment cable-driven continuum manipulators.

中文翻译：

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多段电缆驱动连续体机械臂的协调可变阻抗控制

摘要 连续体机械手通常在受限制的环境中工作，依靠身体顺应性来适应障碍物并与障碍物相互作用。连续体机械手的力操作能力对实际应用提出了重大挑战。为了在耦合位置力约束下实现多位置接触的稳定运行，提高多段电缆驱动连续体机械手的操作灵活性，本文提出了连续体机械臂多接触点的可变阻抗协调控制。借助外部负载估计器和配置空间中的可变阻抗控制器，基于拟刚体建模方法的多节段电缆驱动连续体机械手可实现作业空间的协调变阻抗控制。分析了外部负载估计器和控制器的稳定性。数值模拟和实验也证明了所提出的多段电缆驱动连续机械手控制方案的可行性。