The ultimate hyper redundant robotic arm based on omnidirectional joints

Hyper-redundant robots have high potential in applications with complicated environment or where interaction between robots and human beings is needed. However, current hyper redundant robots are designed with limited agility because a joint in hyper redundant robots can only rotate around a fixed axis. In this paper, we propose an ultimate hyper redundant robotic arm design in which ever joint is omnidirectional, thus pushing the boundary of current hyper-redundant robots in terms of accessibility and agility. In the proposed design, each joint in the hyper redundant robot is an omnidirectional ball joint. The rigidity of each ball joint is controlled by shape memory alloys (SMA). The rotation of the ball joints is also controlled by shape memory alloys. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed ultimate hyper redundant robotic arm, a prototype has been made and illustrated in this paper.