Continuum robots with redundant degrees of freedom and postactuated devices are suitable for application in aerospace, nuclear facilities, and other narrow and multiobstacle special environments. The development of a snake-inspired continuum robot is presented in this study. The morphological skeleton structure of the snake body is simulated using underactuated continuum joints, which include several rigid-body joints in series. Each rigid-body joint is driven by the traction of a wire rope. Based on the layered-drive principle, angular synchronous motion can be realized in space with multiple rigid-body joints in a single continuous joint, which can considerably reduce the complexity of the inverse kinematics solution, terminal drive box, and control system. The static and dynamic characteristics of the snake-inspired robot are obtained through torque balance and an equivalent transformation. Finally, we demonstrate trajectory planning and load capacity testing in two robot prototypes with arm lengths of 1500 and 2300 mm (including two and four continuous joints, respectively). The rationality of the structure and the correctness of the control of the layered-drive snake-inspired robot are verified.

中文翻译：

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受蛇启发的层驱动连续体机器人

具有冗余自由度和后驱动装置的连续体机器人适用于航空航天、核设施等狭窄多障碍的特殊环境。本研究介绍了受蛇启发的连续体机器人的开发。蛇体的形态骨架结构使用欠驱动的连续关节模拟，其中包括多个串联的刚体关节。每个刚体关节由钢丝绳牵引驱动。基于分层驱动原理，可以在单个连续关节中实现多个刚体关节的空间角同步运动，大大降低了逆运动学求解、终端驱动箱和控制系统的复杂性。通过扭矩平衡和等效变换获得蛇形机器人的静态和动态特性。最后，我们在两个臂长分别为 1500 和 2300 毫米（分别包括两个和四个连续关节）的机器人原型中演示了轨迹规划和负载能力测试。验证了分层驱动蛇形机器人结构的合理性和控制的正确性。