A Design Method of Multi-link Cable Driven Robots Considering the Rigid Structure Design and Cable Routing

Multi-link cable driven robots (MCDRs) have attracted much attention in recent years and have been widely used in complex working environments due to their inherent high compliance and flexibility. Although lots of work have studied on the cable routing arrangement of MCDRs, because of the highly coupled relationship between the rigid structure and cable routing, to improve the overall performance of the robot, it is necessary but challenging to take the rigid structure into account. In this paper, we propose a co-design method for MCDRs, which is based on configuration planning with target reachability and structure design with cable routing arrangement according to wrench feasibility. The complete set of design variables can be determined by applying the proposed co-design method for both rigid-links and the cable routing arrangement. Furthermore, the example results for a planar MCDR demonstrate the rationality and applicability of the proposed method.