Apparatus and Method of Foldable and Expandable Robot Arm for Manipulation in Confined Space

Expandable robotic arms are described. A robotic arm may include a series of expandable segments connected to each other. Further, each of the expandable segments may be individually controlled to expand and/or tilt with one or two tilt degrees of freedom. In operation, the robotic arm may expand sequentially segment by segment from a proximal most segment to a distal most segment to reach a target position and orientation from an initial position and orientation. A variety of methods and algorithms for pathfinding and otherwise operating such a robotic arm are also described.