A slim manipulator with redundant degrees of freedom can be of great use for inspection and maintenance in confined spaces. Cable-actuation is often preferred because of the possible proximal placement of the actuators. However, tension induced elongation and friction of the cables may substantially vary under different manipulator poses. It is then difficult to achieve high positioning accuracy under different loading conditions, even when such a manipulator went through careful motion calibration and actuation compensation. This paper hence proposes a 12-section cable-driven hyper-redundant manipulator with 24 degrees of freedom and closed-loop control. Customized magnetic angle sensors were integrated at each joint with a carefully designed sensor communication network to achieve rapid joint feedback. A novel puller-follower controller was proposed to properly actuate three cables for each universal joint that connects adjacent manipulator sections. The two joint angles of the universal joint and the cable tensions can be simultaneously controlled with the proposed puller-follower controller. The design overview, system descriptions, kinematics and experimental characterizations are reported in detail. After automatic straightening from arbitrary initial statuses, the proposed manipulator can achieve ±0.5° precision at each joint, even under a tip load up to 500 g.

具有冗余自由度的细长机械手对于在密闭空间中进行检查和维护非常有用。由于致动器可能靠近近端放置，因此通常首选电缆驱动。然而，在不同的机械手姿势下，缆索的张力引起的伸长率和摩擦力可能会发生很大变化。即使这样的机械手经过仔细的运动校准和驱动补偿，也很难在不同的负载条件下实现高定位精度。因此，本文提出了一种具有 24 个自由度和闭环控制的 12 节电缆驱动的超冗余机械手。每个关节处都集成了定制的磁角度传感器，并通过精心设计的传感器通信网络实现了快速的关节反馈。提出了一种新型拉手随动控制器，以正确驱动连接相邻机械手部分的每个万向节的三根电缆。万向节的两个关节角度和缆索张力可以通过所提出的牵引器-从动控制器同时控制。详细报告了设计概述、系统描述、运动学和实验特征。从任意初始状态自动矫直后，即使在高达 500 g 的尖端负载下，所提出的机械手也可以在每个关节处实现 ±0.5° 的精度。详细报告了系统描述、运动学和实验特征。从任意初始状态自动矫直后，即使在高达 500 g 的尖端负载下，所提出的机械手也可以在每个关节处实现 ±0.5° 的精度。详细报告了系统描述、运动学和实验特征。从任意初始状态自动矫直后，即使在高达 500 g 的尖端负载下，所提出的机械手也可以在每个关节处实现 ±0.5° 的精度。