Design and Prototyping of a Cable-Driven Parallel Robot with a Reconfigurable Moving-Platform for Pick-and-Place Operations

Operating traditional serial robots in large environments are challenging due to the difficulty and exponential cost of scaling the system's workspace. Cable-Driven Parallel Robots (CDPRs), thanks to the low cost of cables in comparison to more sophisticated mechanisms, have the possibility to operate across large workspaces with limited cost. However, one issue for CDPR remains the more complex handling of cable collisions with the environment, in particular when operating in cluttered environments that are typical in large warehouses. The following work presents a solution to this problem through the use of a reconfigurable Mobile Platform. The mechanical design and control strategy are proposed and discussed. A reconfigurable dual-platform design and unique cable routing inside the CDPR's mobile platform make it possible to increase the robot reachability. Using only the main robot motors and a docking system between the mobile platform and the work-cell ceiling, the system can dock throughout the entire workspace and deploy a sub-robot capable of operating between obstacles increasing the reachability of the robot. Two different docking system design are tested using dedicated control strategy and compared. The prototypes are experimentally validated and compared using a large scale eight cables CDPR.