Design and Development Cable Driven Parallel Robots Based on EtherCAT

Cable-Driven Parallel Robots (CDPRs) are a type of parallel robot that uses a flexible cable as a driven mechanism to control the moving platform. The biggest advantage of CDPR is that it can be easily configured for large workspaces. However, conventional industrial networks are limited in transmission distance as well as response time, which hinders flexibility as well as limits the expansion of the workspace of large CDPRs. Therefore, the choice of communication technology plays an important role in deploying and ensuring the stability of the robot. With the advantage of high data transmission speed and flexible scalability, EtherCAT is one of the optimal choices for the problem of needing transmission distance between large nodes such as cable robots. This paper studies the important problems of CDPR, such as kinematics, velocity, dynamics, and cable tension distribution, the calculation results are simulated, evaluated, and used to design the controller for CDPR using the EtherCAT communication network. The computational model was experimentally tested on a sample CDPR, and the experimental results were evaluated and analyzed, in addition, the article will discuss the development direction and practical application of CDPR when integrating EtherCAT technology.