Design, modelling and control of a hyper-redundant 3-RPS parallel mechanism

In this paper, we describe the development of a hyper-constrained serial robot-assembly, which will lead do a snake-like kinematic. The goal of this robot is to serve as an experimental platform for a medical catheter for human surgery. We have two kinds of platform kinematics, namely the microscopic one, which depends of a three-actuator-solution, which gives us a 3-DOF¹ moveability of the microscopic TCP (tool center point). The assembly of those microscopic units in a serial manner finally leads to a snake-like robot kinematic. Using MATLAB, we established a mathematical model for simulation, which can be fully integrated into the control loop for the different actuators. With the help of rapid prototyping(RP), we built up a physical model, which is actually in a testing phase.