Optimal Design of a Deployable and Reconfigurable Cable-Driven Parallel Robot

Abstract

This paper presents the optimal design of a deployable and reconfigurable cable-driven parallel robot. Cable robots offer a practical solution to large-scale manipulation tasks. They use cables instead of rigid links to control the end-effector motion. To enable rapid deployment and workspace reconfiguration, the actuation and guiding units can be integrated into the end-effector so that the latter can be easily mounted on different frames. In this case, the end-effector geometry must be optimized taking into account several potential frame configurations. To this end, this paper introduces a novel gradient-based optimization method, designed to maximize the volume and symmetry of the wrench-feasible workspace.