Cable Tension Minimization of a Redundant Cable-Driven Robot With Flexible End Effector

Abstract The operation of robots in narrow spaces is a challenge in aerospace engineering. In order to fulfill the working requirements within some specific narrow space, this article proposes a design and optimization method for a redundant flexible cable-driven robot. According to the relevant restrictions of the robot's structure, a distributed flexible cable-driving strategy is investigated with a focus on minimizing the maximum tension of each cable. Through the symmetry group and physical symmetry group, both the search task and computational load are greatly reduced. Therefore, this algorithm is helpful to simplify the calculation and the selection of flexible cables for the lightweight design of a robot. Based on the design and optimization method proposed in this article, an experimental prototype was manufactured and systematically tested. The results show that the robot's motion and control parameters meet theoretical expectations very well, validating the effectiveness of the proposed method. Consequently, this method can be applied to similar flexible cable-driven robots for tension optimization, material selection, and structural design of cables.