Design and verification of a novel motion-decoupled cable-driven manipulator

Abstract

The joint coupling relationship was studied aiming at the motion coupling among multi cable-driven robot joints. A novel motion-decoupled mechanism is proposed and investigated. Two driving cables of distal joint traverse the modular in a specific routing. As a result, cables will wind and unwind at a certain angular along the groove in the following wheel. This design can effectively compensate the length change of cables during the rotating moving of proximal joint. Afterward, a 2–degree-of-freedom cable-driven manipulator platform using this motion-decoupled modular was set up. The verification experiment has shown a productive performance in realizing motion independence. Then, a new robust controller using time-delay estimation and fuzzy algorithm is proposed for the decoupled cable-driven manipulator. Thanks to time-delay estimation and fuzzy algorithm, the proposed controller is model-free, precise and easy to use under practical applications. Finally, contrast control experiments have been performed, and the result illustrates the superiority of the proposed control strategy.