The inverse kinematics of hyper-redundant manipulators using splines

This paper presents a spline-based solution method for the inverse kinematics of hyper-redundant manipulators. The reference or backbone curve, that describes the macroscopic geometric shape of the manipulator is modelled by cubic and quintic piecewise parametric spline segments. A procedure for the coordinate frame distribution is proposed that allows any desirable rotation to be deployed about the backbone curve. Moreover, control points are used to determine the optimum shape and to change the length of the manipulator. The proposed solution method is general and applicable to non-extensible as well as extensible planar or spatial hyper-redundant manipulators with different morphologies.