Structural analysis of steel-cable-driven multi-joint robot manipulator

We have been researching robot manipulators with steel-cable-driven structure. The reason of using such are to implement serial manipulators interesting performance such as low cost, large payload ability as well as light self-weight, and also flexible features. While, on the other hand, the normal ring winding structure remains disadvantage in motion coupling, also complex in control. In this paper, we first propose a novel planetary 8-shape cable winding structure in n-DOF robot manipulator, and then discuss its characteristics, such as the geometry, the kinematics, and the force/torque transmission mechanism. The later chapter of the paper reports a trial 5-DOF model with basic experiments to verify the above theoretical analysis and simulation. Hopefully, such structure should have the possibility to expanding its application into industry, serial manipulator, snake-like structure, for instance.