Flexible manipulators are found in a variety of fields from medical to aerospace where there is a requirement for long thin instruments. In the medical field, the growing popularity of minimally invasive treatments has spurred the development of many new and increasingly complex flexible catheter-like instruments. This complexity can be effectively managed with robotic control which provides more dexterous and stable manipulation at reduced scales.

Traditional robotic control is based on precise and well defined sensor-actuator systems. Continuum manipulators, on the other hand, articulate by means of material compliance and can be difficult to both measure and model. My goal is to address the need for a robust and general framework for modeling and control of tendon driven continuum manipulators. This dissertation describes a linear mechanics-based model for the forward and inverse kinematics from tendon displacement to manipulator configuration. This configuration model includes both the mechanical and tendon path coupling among multiple serial sections. The configuration model is then used with a D-H-based kinematic model for controlling the distal tip in task-space with 6-DOF. Finally, a vision system is used for sensor feedback control of the distal-tip in executing automated surgical tasks on the bench top.