Analysis of a High Stiffness Warehousing Cable-Based Robot

Abstract

This paper presents and analyzes a novel architecture for a fully constrained cable-based robot that is used in warehousing tasks. A mobile platform is connected to a static box by a set of twelve cables; the cables arrangement allows the mobile platform to achieve stiff positions with constant orientation along with large planar motions. The mechanical analysis of the robot includes inverse and forward kinematics, as well as static analysis and stiffness models. In addition, a workspace analysis describes the feasible boundaries for the suspended and fully constrained cases. Then, the stiffness attributes for both cases are analyzed and discussed. Simulation results show that the proposed robot meets the warehousing requirements of large workspace, high stiffness, and low force input.