Path Planning of Continuum Robot Based on Path Fitting

The Continuum Robot has a multiredundant dof structure, which is extremely advantageous in the unstructured environment, and can complete such tasks as aircraft fuel tank inspection. However, due to its complex kinematics and coupling of joint motion, its motion path planning is also a challenging task. In this paper, a path planning method for Continuum Robot based on an equal curvature model in an aircraft fuel tank environment is proposed. Considering the complexity of calculation and the structural characteristics of Continuum Robot, a feasible obstacle avoidance discrete path is obtained by using the improved RRT algorithm. Then, joint fitting is performed on the existing discrete path according to the kinematic model of Continuum Robot, joint obstacle avoidance was conducted in the process of fitting, and finally, a motion path suitable for the Continuum Robot was selected. A reasonable experiment is designed based on MATLAB, and simulation and analysis results demonstrate excellent performance of this method and feasibility of path planning.