Computing cross-sections of the workspace of a cable-driven parallel robot with 6 sagging cables having limited lengths

Abstract

Although workspace is essential for the design and control of cable-driven parallel robots very few works have been devoted to this topic when sagging cables are considered, most probably because of the complexity of the cable model. In this paper we consider a CDPR with 6 sagging cables whose lengths have a limited maximal value. We propose an algorithm to compute the border of horizontal cross-section of the workspace for a given altitude and orientation of the platform. We show that the singularity of the inverse kinematics equations have to be taken into account for a proper determination of the border.