Forward Kinematics for Suspended Under-Actuated Cable-Driven Parallel Robots: A Neural Network Approach

Abstract

Abstract Kinematic analysis of under-constrained Cable-Driven Parallel Robots has been a topic of interest because of the inherent coupling between the loop-closure and static equilibrium equations. The paper proposes an unsupervised neural network algorithm to perform real-time forward geometrico-static analysis of such robots in a suspended configuration under the action of gravity. The formulation determines a non-linear function approximation to model the problem and proves to be efficient in solving for consecutive and close waypoints in a path. The methodology is applied on a six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) spatial under-constrained suspended cable-driven parallel robot. Specific comparison results to show the effectiveness of the proposed method in tracking a given path and degree of constraint satisfaction are presented against the results obtained from non-linear least-square optimization.