This paper describes and discusses the history and state of the art of continuous backbone robot manipulators. Also known as continuum manipulators, these robots, which resemble biological trunks and tentacles, offer capabilities beyond the scope of traditional rigid-link manipulators. They are able to adapt their shape to navigate through complex environments and grasp a wide variety of payloads using their compliant backbones. In this paper, we review the current state of knowledge in the field, focusing particularly on kinematic and dynamic models for continuum robots. We discuss the relationships of these robots and their models to their counterparts in conventional rigid-link robots. Ongoing research and future developments in the field are discussed. 1. Introduction Robotics as a field is still in its formative stages. Designers of robots are continuing to explore the range of possibilities for robot structures which can sense and perceive, navigate and locomote, as well as grasp and manipulate. The creation of programmable manipulators can be traced to be very beginning of robotics as a discipline [1]. To date, robot manipulators remain the core product of the field, being productively and profitably deployed in industrial settings worldwide. However, when moving outside the highly structured world of industry, especially the factory floor, traditional rigid-link manipulators have been less successful. Their rigid-link structure (while excellent for precise positioning of their end effector) tends to be the cause of unwanted collisions when not in workcell environments specially engineered to maintain open spaces for their movements. Their inability to grasp objects other than at their end effector significantly restricts their manipulation capabilities beyond those of objects preengineered to fit their end effectors. Consequently, in real-world environments and situations not prechoreographed, it is generally nontrivial, and often not possible, to deploy rigid-link manipulators. Robot manipulators do not, however, have to be formed from rigid-links. An alternative design possibility, which we discuss in this paper, is to create a robot with a continuous form or backbone. These robots, termed continuum robots, can be viewed as being “invertebrate” robots, as compared with the “vertebrate” design of conventional rigid-link robots. Continuum robots can bend (and often extend/contract and sometimes twist) at any point along their structure. This provides them with capabilities beyond the scope of their rigid-link counterparts. An example (in the
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