Cable Behavior Influence on Cable-Driven Parallel Robots Vibrations: Experimental Characterization and Simulation

Abstract In this paper, the influence of cable behavior on cable-driven parallel robot (CDPR) is studied. This study is conducted with the goal of designing a medium size CDPR for additive manufacturing. This robot needs to have a high level of rigidity to guarantee a given tracking tool path error. First, the characterization of different thin cables (steel, Dyneema®, aramid) is presented. The mechanical properties of these cables, in terms of stiffness, damping, hysteresis, and creep are compared with regard to additive manufacturing applications. A stiffness model, which takes into account the cable preload, and a dynamic model of CDPR are proposed. The simulations of these two models are compared with experimental results obtained for the range of cables studied using dynamic stiffness analysis on an 8-cable fully constrained CDPR. This paper concludes on the type of cable that should be chosen for our application.