The Design and Kinematics Analysis of an Underactuated Cable-Truss Mechanism

Abstract

Although underactuated mechanism has been widely studied in recent years, little information is available on that with cable-truss. An underactuated cable-truss mechanism was presented in this paper. This serial mechanism consists of five quadrilateral cable-truss units and moves by changing the length of the cables. It can be extended to large-scale spatial gripper and has advantages like light weight, simple structure and high reliability. This mechanism can capture the object without its precise position and shape. The kinematics analysis was discussed considering the characteristics of different ways to capture and a numerical example was given. The results of motion simulation corresponding with the example were shown to verify the correctness of the theoretical analysis.