Optimal Design of Continuum Robots With Reachability Constraints
Addressing the structural design challenge of multi-segment continuum robots caused by curvature coupling, this paper proposes a joint topology and sizing optimization method with workspace reachability as a hard constraint. The approach innovatively integrates numerical reachability analysis, torque-aware inverse kinematics modeling, and the Estimation of Distribution Algorithm (EDA), enabling minimization of joint torques under forward/inverse kinematic consistency constraints. Compared to conventional genetic algorithms, EDA improves the composite performance—measuring both robot length and actuation energy consumption—by 4–15% across three representative tasks, significantly enhancing solution quality and convergence efficiency. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first to synergistically combine reachability analysis, torque-aware kinematics, and EDA for continuum robot structural optimization. It establishes a novel paradigm for autonomous configuration design that simultaneously achieves high workspace reachability and low energy consumption.