Rapid and safe wire tension distribution scheme for redundant cable-driven parallel manipulators

Abstract A non-iterative analytical approach is investigated to plan the safe wire tension distribution along with the cables in the redundant cable-driven parallel robots. The proposed algorithm considers not only tracking the desired trajectory but also protecting the system against possible failures. This method is used to optimize the non-negative wire tensions through the cables which are constrained based on the workspace conditions. It also maintains both actuators’ torque and cables’ tensile strength boundary limits. The pseudo-inverse problem solution leads to an n -dimensional convex problem, which is related to the robot degrees of redundancy. In this paper, a comprehensive solution is presented for a 1–3 degree(s) of redundancy in wire-actuated robots. To evaluate the effectiveness of this method, it is verified through an experimental study on the RoboCab cable robot in the infinity trajectory tracking task. As a matter of comparison, some standard methods like Active-set and sequential quadratic programming are also presented and the average elapsed time for each method is compared to the proposed algorithm.