Design Analysis of a Cable-Driven Parallel Robot with Parallel Cables for Ship Side Painting

In order to satisfy the demand for large planar workspace and lightweight in ship side painting, we designed a cable-driven parallel robot (CDPR) with parallel cables powered by a common drive unit considering easy deployment and structural simplicity. Different parallel cables and the effects of cable numbers are discussed. Based on the analysis, typical configurations of parallel cables are proposed, and the configuration of the CDPR for ship side painting is deduced, which has two translational degrees of freedom (DOF), and all three rotational DOFs are constrained. Kinematic and static modeling are executed, and dimensional optimization is carried out with the goal of maximizing the workspace. Workspace coverage rate of 88% is achieved with a 30m×20m vertical area.