A Rapid Initial-Pose Self-calibration Method for Underactuated Cable-Driven Parallel Robots

Underactuated cable-driven parallel robots (UACDPRs) use fewer cables than the end-effector (EE) degrees of freedom to control their motion. Depending on the sensors installed on the robot, the initial pose of the EE may not be known at startup, and determining it is essential for subsequent operations. This paper presents a rapidly executable self-calibration procedure for estimating the initial pose of a UACDPR. The procedure employs a nonlinear weighted least square optimization, whose tentative solution is also optimized for rapid global convergence. Experiments on a 4-cable UACDPR demonstrates the procedure.