  A hyper-redundant robotic arm is a manipulator with many degrees of freedom,
capable of executing tasks in cluttered environments where robotic arms with
fewer degrees of freedom are unable to operate. This paper introduces a new
method for modeling those manipulators in a completely dynamic way. The
proposed method enables online changes of the kinematic structure with the use
of a special function; termed "meta-controlling function". This function can be
used to develop policies to reduce drastically the computational cost for a
single task, and to robustly control the robotic arm, even in the event of
partial damage. The direct and inverse kinematics are solved for a generic
three-dimensional articulated hyper-redundant arm, that can be used as a proof
of concept for more specific structures. To demonstrate the robustness of our
method, experimental simulation results, for a basic "meta-controlling"
function, are presented.
