A new spatial hyper-redundant manipulator

This work presents a novel hyper-redundant manipulator. Such a manipulator is built with a variable number of tandem-assembled modules. Each module consists of a 3-dof parallel manipulator with asymmetric extremities in which moving platform possesses mixed motions with respect to the base platform. The manipulator's architecture is so simple that the forward position analysis is presented in closed-form solution, more specifically, in echelon-form solution. On the other hand, the velocity and acceleration analyses are carried out using the theory of screws. Finally, a case study consisting of solving the kinematic analysis of a 30-dof hyper-redundant manipulator is presented.