3D Printing of Concrete with a Continuum Robot Hose Using Variable Curvature Kinematics

We present a novel application of continuum robots acting as concrete hoses to support 3D printing of cementitious materials. An industrial concrete hose was fitted with a cable harness and remotely actuated via tendons. The resulting continuum hose robot exhibited non constant curvature. In order to account for this, a new geometric approach to modeling variable curvature inverse kinematics using Euler curves is introduced herein. The new closed form model does not impose any additional computational cost compared to the constant curvature model and results in a marked improvement in the observed performance. Experiments involving 3D printing with cementitious mortar using a continuum hose robot were also conducted.