Improving Disturbance Rejection and Dynamics of Cable Driven Parallel Robots with On-board Propellers

This work studies redundant actuation for both trajectory tracking and disturbance rejection on flexible cable-driven parallel robots (CDPR). High dynamics/bandwidth unidirectional force generators, like air propellers, are used in combination with conventional but slower cable winding winches. To optimally balance the action of the two types of actuation within their saturation constraints, a model predictive controller is used. Experiments show the added value of on-board propulsion units with respect to winch-only control in order to improve the overall CDPR dynamic behavior.