Cable Length Estimation for a Hyper-Redundant Robot Based on Cable Hole Clearance Calculation

For the cable-driven hyper-redundant robot, most of the current drive cable length estimation methods consider that the cable always passes through the center of the hole, and do not consider the effect of cable-hole clearance, resulting in a large motion error. In this paper, we propose a cable length estimating method by considering cable-hole clearance. Based on the simplified space model of the cable hole, it uses the recursive algorithm to obtain the approximate solution of the actual drive cable length. The algorithm can meet the requirements of real-time control while ensuring calculation accuracy. The correctness of the approximate solution is verified by using the interior point penalty function method. Taking a 24DoF hyper-redundant manipulator with joint angle closed-loop control as an example, the effectiveness of the proposed method is proved by comparing the theoretical calculation results with the actual drive cable length.