Cable Behavior Influence on Cable-Driven Parallel Robots Vibrations: Experimental Characterization and Simulation

In this paper, the influence of cable behavior on cable-driven parallel robot (CDPR) is studied. This study is conducted with the goal of designing a medium size CDPR for additive manufacturing. This robot needs to have a high level of rigidity to guarantee a given tracking tool path error. First, the characterization of different thin cables (steel, Dyneema((R)), aramid) is presented. The mechanical properties of these cables, in terms of stiffness, damping, hysteresis, and creep are compared with regard to additive manufacturing applications. A stiffness model, which takes into account the cable preload, and a dynamic model of CDPR are proposed. The simulations of these two models are compared with experimental results obtained for the range of cables studied using dynamic stiffness analysis on an 8-cable fully constrained CDPR. This paper concludes on the type of cable that should be chosen for our application.