%0 Journal Article
%T The effects of cables' strain and specific stiffness on the stiffness of cable
%A Hao Xiong
%A Xiumin Diao
%J Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science
%@ 2041-2983
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0954406219846536
%X A cable-driven parallel manipulator is driven by a set of cables instead of rigid links. Since cables usually have more flexibility than rigid links, the stiffness of a cable-driven parallel manipulator has been a concern for many applications that require controllable system stiffness. This paper studies how cables' strain and specific stiffness affect the stiffness of a cable-driven parallel manipulator that has p degrees of freedom and n ( n ¡Ý p + 1 ) cables. A decoupled stiffness model of a cable-driven parallel manipulator is derived mathematically. In the decoupled stiffness model, cables' specific stiffness is decoupled from the other factors that affect the stiffness of the cable-driven parallel manipulator, namely, cable strains, positions of anchor points on the end-effector, and extended lengths and orientations of cables. The concept of stiffness change ratio is proposed to reflect how significantly the stiffness of a cable-driven parallel manipulator can be regulated at a specific pose. The decoupled stiffness model shows that it is cable strains, rather than just cable tensions, that determine the stiffness change ratio of a cable-driven parallel manipulator at a specific pose. It is mathematically proved that, at a specific pose, the stiffness change ratio of a cable-driven parallel manipulator using cables with an extended strain range is larger than or equal to that of the cable-driven parallel manipulator using cables with the original strain range
%K Cable-driven parallel manipulator
%K stiffness analysis
%K strain
%K specific stiffness
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0954406219846536