Tendon-driven Elastic Telescopic Arm -Integration of Linear Motion and Bending Motion-

The telescopic structure has a high extension-to-contraction ratio and is suitable for using a long manipulator that reduces the size of the structure because it is lightweight and small in diameter. There is a problem that conventional telescopic structures are only used in an open environment because it can not avoid obstacles on the axis of extension. In this paper, we propose a linear mechanism that can extend and contract one node at a time by a linear movement mechanism using a slide screw, and clarify its effectiveness by experiments. In addition, we control the tip position of the arm by the rope winding length and discuss the accuracy quantitatively. In addition, by integrating the linear mechanism and the bending mechanism, we achieved the linear motion while avoiding obstacles on the axis of extension.