Cable-Direct-Driven Robot (CDDR) in contrast with general robots (serial or parallel robots) has many prominent advantages, such as reliable and lower-mass structure, lower-development cost and operational excellence, better stiffness and high-loading capacity, and potentially large workspace. However, this workspace analysis has difficult work because the mechanism must maintain positive cable tension due to the unilateral property of cables.
This paper focuses on the workspace analysis of planar CDDR in terms of two-configuration cases, crossed and non-crossed cable type. Also, only translational CDDR, with gravitational force, is considered in this paper as we attempt to hold zero rotational position using control system. Kinematics modeling, statics modeling, and the wrench-feasible workspace are used in order to analyze the model.
The results show that the crossed cable type has more larger workspace, compared to non-crossed cable type. Therefore, the crossed cable type is recommended to the CDDR instead of non-crossed type.