Design and Analysis of a Cable-Driven Parallel Robot for Waist Rehabilitation

This paper presents a cable-driven parallel robot for waist rehabilitation (CPRWR). The CPRWR has been conceived, designed, and analyzed. Degree of freedoms (DOFs) of the waist movement, the characteristics of drives, and the structure of the robot should be considered in the design process of the CPRWR. All kinds of sensors are chosen and used to measure the position and orientation of trainer for ensuring their safety. Human body waist is considered as a spherical joint, and the part above of human body waist is driven by a cable-driven parallel robots(CDPRs). Considering that the lower extremity and pelvis of human body have an effect on the waist rehabilitation training, thus the lower extremity and pelvis of human body are fixed by a lower extremity exoskeleton. Inverse kinematics, statics, and dynamics of the CPRWR have investigated. Finally, numerical simulation results indicate that change curves of the cable lengths are successive and smooth, and all cable tensions are positive, which also meet design requirement of the CPRWR.