Continuum Robot: Tendon-Driven Bending

Continuum robots replace rigid links and discrete hinges with a single backbone that bends continuously along its length — the same strategy an elephant's trunk or an octopus arm uses. This simulator models a tendon-driven backbone built from stacked discs: three tendons, spaced 120° apart, thread through holes in every disc down the full length. Pulling one tendon shortens that side of the backbone and leaves the rest at full length, so the structure arcs smoothly toward it. Drag the three tendon-tension sliders independently and watch the backbone sweep through any direction in space, following the constant-curvature (PCC) model used to plan real continuum-robot motion for surgical endoscopes and pipe-inspection probes.