Elasto-Static Model and Accuracy Analysis of a Large Deployable Cable-Driven Parallel Robot

Cable-driven parallel robots (CDPRs) have the potential of being the go-to rapidly deployable and reconfigurable robots. This is because cables are used instead of rigid links and thus the overall robot architecture can consist of only four masts, eight motors and very long cables actuating the moving-platform. This paper introduces a large deployable CDPR called ROCASPECT. Its accuracy and repeatability have been evaluated according to ISO 9283:1998. Moreover, the effect of modeling errors and mast compliance on the CDPR accuracy and repeatability is studied. Despite modeling issues, accuracy of 5 cm and repeatability of 1 cm were obtained for the deployable CDPR of size 23.3 m $$\times $$ 19.0 m $$\times $$ 4.0 m.