  There is a surge of research interest in the field of tensegrity robotics.
Robots developed under this paradigm provide many advantages and have
distinguishing features in terms of structural compliance, dexterity, safety,
and weight reduction. This paper proposes a new robotic mechanism based on
tensegrity ('tension-integrity') robots and reconfigurable modular robots. The
specific actuation schemes for this tensegrity robot with multiple degrees of
freedom are presented. This article describes an easy-to-assemble 350 mm
tensegrity based robot prototype by stacking a series of rigid struts linked
with tensegrity joints that have no direct rigid contact with each other. The
functionality of the proposed robot is validated by the experimental results by
integrating the polyhedral parallel structure as its skeleton and series of
tensegrity joints. The proposed manipulator is capable of reaching bending
angles up to 76 degrees. An adaptive cable driven underactuated robotic gripper
is designed and attached to the tensegrity manipulator for grasping objects in
different shapes, weights, and sizes.
