A novel design method for a reconfigurable two-drive cable-driven parallel robot

Cable-Driven Parallel Robots (CDPRs), with their low inertia and high safety, have become increasingly attractive for pick-and-place manipulations. Yet, for planar movements of CDPRs, excluding suspended varieties, a typical cable-driven parallel robot configuration requires a minimum of three drives to accomplish two degrees of freedom. To address this limitation, this study introduces an innovative reconfigurable design approach for a two-drive CDPR. A unique mechanism is devised in which each cable is substituted by a rotating rod capable of the same movement. This mechanism, when integrated with a cable-driven parallel robot, facilitates two degrees of freedom for planar motions using only two drives, thereby circumventing the consumption of motor torque during tensioning. The design method proposed herein can be applied to reconfigure any planar CDPR configuration. We performed a comprehensive examination of the geometric model of the designed CDPR, including pulley kinematics, and analyzed the CDPR’s structure, kinematics, and dynamics. Our research investigates the workspace of the designed CDPR and compares it to the workspace of traditional CDPRs. Additionally, we contrasted the proposed CDPR with conventional CDPRs using an illustrative example. Lastly, a prototype was constructed, and kinematic trajectory tracking control was successfully implemented, demonstrating its feasibility.