A real-time algorithm for simulation of flexible objects and hyper-redundant manipulators

Sreenivasan, S and Goel, Piyush and Ghosal, Ashitava (2010) A real-time algorithm for simulation of flexible objects and hyper-redundant manipulators. In: Mechanism and Machine Theory, 45 (3). pp. 454-466.

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Abstract

Flexible objects such as a rope or snake move in a way such that their axial length remains almost constant. To simulate the motion of such an object, one strategy is to discretize the object into large number of small rigid links connected by joints. However, the resulting discretised system is highly redundant and the joint rotations for a desired Cartesian motion of any point on the object cannot be solved uniquely. In this paper, we revisit an algorithm, based on the classical tractrix curve, to resolve the redundancy in such hyper-redundant systems. For a desired motion of the `head' of a link, the `tail' is moved along a tractrix, and recursively all links of the discretised objects are moved along different tractrix curves. The algorithm is illustrated by simulations of a moving snake, tying of knots with a rope and a solution of the inverse kinematics of a planar hyper-redundant manipulator. The simulations show that the tractrix based algorithm leads to a more `natural' motion since the motion is distributed uniformly along the entire object with the displacements diminishing from the `head' to the `tail'.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Mechanism and Machine Theory
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Additional Information:	Copyright for this article belongs to Elsevier Science.
Keywords:	Redundancy resolution; Hyper-redundant manipulators; Tractrix; Flexible objects; Real-time simulation
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Mechanical Engineering
Date Deposited:	12 Jan 2010 09:01
Last Modified:	28 Dec 2010 07:19
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/25362

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