Abstract
Cable-driven parallel manipulators have been developed as a new kind of parallel manipulators in the last decades, which adopt flexible cables instead of rigid limbs. Cable-driven parallel manipulators possess some inbred advantages over rigid parallel manipulators, such as simple structure, large workspace, high load-weight ratio, and good dynamic performance. Accordingly, cable-driven parallel manipulator has been more and more widely used in practical engineering. The related research has drawn extensive academic attention, as a hot topic with rapid development. This special issue aims to focus on the recent developments concerning cable-driven parallel manipulators. In this special issue onadvances in cable-driven parallel manipulators, we have invited investigators to contribute 16 original research articles as well as review articles.
Review articles include articles “Workspace classification and quantification calculations of cable-driven parallel robots” and “An overview of the development for cable-driven parallel manipulator,” in which the first article introduces the theoretical research progress of workspace on cable-driven parallel mechanism and the second article gives an overview of research and application of cable parallel robots. The article entitled “Iterative learning tracking control of a hybrid-driven based three-cable parallel manipulator” proposes an iterative learning tracking control of a hybrid-driven based three-cable parallel manipulator. How to improve dynamic characteristics and accuracy of cable-driven parallel manipulators is discussed in article entitled “Dynamic analysis and vibration attenuation of cable-driven parallel manipulators for large workspace applications.”
In this special issue, there are 8 articles studying the cable-driven parallel mechanism of 500-meter aperture spherical radio telescope (FAST) project, which is being built in China as the largest radio telescope around the world. The articles entitled “Study on telescope gain affected by a multilevel hybrid mechanism in FAST” and “The effects of structural parameter variation on cable force of FAST cable-net structure” research the accuracy and structure analysis of cable-driven parallel mechanism design. Other papers including “Practical damping identification of FAST cable suspension,” “Optimal orientation planning and control deviation estimation on FAST cable-driven parallel robot,” “Real-time filter method based on the structural frequency of FAST cabin-cable system,” “Calibration and motion control of a cable-driven parallel manipulator based triple-level spatial positioner,” “Pose planning for the feed support system of FAST,” and “Research on longitudinal vibration characteristic of the six-cable-driven parallel manipulator in FAST” focus on control studies and correspond to damping identification, orientation planning, filter method, motion control, and vibration characteristic, respectively. In summary, the aforementioned articles give us a lot of contribution applications of cable-driven parallel mechanism on FAST project.
The rest of the articles mainly present other potential applications of cable-driven parallel mechanisms. In the article entitled “Design and analysis of a wire-driven parallel mechanism for low-gravity environment simulation,” this cable parallel robot is deployed to simulate low-gravity environment, while the medical application on arm exoskeleton using cable robot is mentioned in the article entitled “Optimal design of a 3-DOF cable-driven upper arm exoskeleton.” In addition, cable tension distribution in high-velocity camera robots is also discussed considering cable sag with cable parallel robots in the article entitled “Optimal cable tension distribution of the high-speed redundant driven camera robots considering cable sag and inertia effects.”