Tension Optimization for a Cable-driven Parallel Robot with Non- Negligible Cable Mass

This paper addresses the cable tension distributions of a cable-driven parallel robot with non-negligible cable mass for large dimension mechanisms. A well-known model which describes the profile of a cable under the action of its own weight allows us to take the cable sags into account. In addition, an approach to computing the cable tensions is pre- sented, in which there are two major steps to obtain the cable tensions. In more detail, the first one is an iterative process for obtaining the iterative cable tensions, while the other one is the optimization of the cable tensions obtained by the first step. Finally, a large scale cable-driven manipulator currently under development is analyzed. The results show that cable sags have a significant effect on the cable tensions of such manipulators.