Design and Kinematic Analysis of a Modular Re-Configurable Cable-Driven Parallel Robot

摘要

Cable-driven parallel robots (CDPRs) have attracted extensive attentions in the past few years due to their advantages in both the large workspace and the large payload capacity. Furthermore, CDPRs have potential in reconfiguration. In this research, a re-configurable CDPR is presented, and its modular design is detailed. Then, kinematics of the proposed CDPR is analyzed including the inverse and direct kinematics. Based on the kinematic model, simulation validations are made by using two kinds of trajectories, i.e. a line and a circle. Finally, prototypes are built and preliminary experiments are made, including the alphabetic writing and the Chinese character writing tests. Results show that the performance of the robot is good, which further validates the kinematic modeling and modular design of the proposed reconfigurable CDPR.