Development of coupled tendon-driven multijoint manipulator

A coupled tendon-driven manipulator, CT arm, is presented. In its tendon traction force transmission mechanism, the pair of tendons driving a joint is pulled by base actuators via pulleys mounted on the base-side joints. The mechanism uses coupled drive function of the tendon traction forces and thus exhibits a large payload capability for such a light-weight manipulator arm. CT arm has a solid structure and can be manufactured inexpensively because of its mechanical simplicity. Through experimental simulation, it is known that CT arm has the structure of a variable compliance arm and has an unusually large payload capacity