Abstract <p>Reconfigurable cable-driven parallel robots (RCDPRs) have attracted much attention as a novel type of cable-driven robot that can change their cable anchor position. The reconfigurable cable-driven lower limb rehabilitation robot (RCDLR) employs RCDPRs in lower limb rehabilitation to achieve multiple training modes. This paper investigates the reconfiguration planning and structural parameter design of the RCDLR. The RCDLR aims to fulfill the requirements of early passive rehabilitation training. Therefore, motion capture data are analyzed and mapped to the target trajectory of the RCDLR. Through dynamics modeling, the Wrench-Feasible Anchor-point Space (WFAS) is defined, from which an objective function for optimal reconfiguration planning is derived. The genetic algorithm is used to solve the optimal reconfiguration planning problem. Additionally, we propose the reconfigurability and safety coefficients as components of a structure parameter design method aimed at satisfying multiple target rehabilitation trajectories. Finally, numerical simulations are implemented based on the instance data and target trajectories to compute the specific structure parameters and verify the effectiveness of the reconfiguration planning method.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>