Minimum-time control of coupled tendon-driven manipulators

Hyper-redundant manipulators have very large degrees of redundancy, thus possessing unconventional features such as the ability to enter a narrow space while avoiding obstacles. In this study a time-optimal control scheme was proposed for the coupled tendon-driven manipulators, in which a pair of tendons for driving a joint is pulled from base actuators via pulleys mounted on the base-side joints and the degrees of actuation redundancy exist. The time-optimal trajectory planning problem was solved by using the phase-plane analysis and the linear programming technique. Computer simulations were also performed to demonstrate the validity of the proposed scheme