A decomposition approach for the kinematic synthesis of tendon-driven manipulators

This article describes a decomposition methodology for the kinematic synthe sis of tendon-driven manipulators (TDMs). Based on the QR factorization, th e complex transformation between vectors in the tendon-space and the joint- space of an n-DOF TDM with n + 1 tendons is decomposed as a two-step transf ormation. An orientation matrix is used to characterize the vector transfor mation between the (n + l)-dimensional tendon-space and the n-dimensional i ntermediate equivalent tendon-space. An equivalent structure matrix is also introduced for the vector transformation between the n-dimensional equival ent tendon-space and n-dimensional joint-space. Design equations for synthe sizing a TDM to possess kinematic isotropic transmission characteristics wi th proper tendon routing and pulley sizes are derived. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.