Abstract:Aiming at the flexible shortage of traditional industrial robots,the structure mechanism of a pneumatic continuum robot is designed and inspired by fundamental priciple of elephant trunk bionics.The robot was driven by flexible pneumatic actuator (FPA),its mechanical structure was designed,and a corresponding measurement and control system was designed based on Kinematics analysis according to the “head-leading” method. A real time measurement and test were achieved to the robot's arc length,angle of deflection and curvature, and the measured data was transferred to a host computer to implement and calculate the robot's position and posture in real time.Finally,a prototype of continuum robot was manufactured.Grasping experiment is conducted,which proves that the robot can achieve and grab objects less than 200 g in a way of winding and bending,and the bending angle control precision is less than 10°.