ABSTRACT
Navigating continuum robots, such as STIFF-FLOP manipulator [7], to reach a certain configuration without colliding with its surrounding environments tends to be an ongoing research area as the inherent complexity of this class of robots poses new challenges in this field compared to rigid-link robots. In this chapter, we describe the reactive navigation algorithm for guiding the tip of continuum robot toward the goal while, at the same time, avoiding the robot body from collision with the surrounding environment. We limit the navigation problem in this chapter to the case where the information of the environment is unknown before movement execution and the robot can rely only on the most updated sensory information. Two navigation algorithms, both inspired by the physical phenomena of electromagnetism, are implemented in the kinematic model of multisegment continuum manipulator. The pose estimation strategy needed to estimate the position of the manipulator body is also presented.
