Dual-Loop Dynamic Control of Cable-Driven Parallel Robots Without Online Tension Distribution

Abstract

Achieving high-precision position control while maintaining positive cable tensions is the most challenging issue for the motion control of cable-driven parallel robots, which should be considered significantly. Different from the existing control schemes with online tension distribution that needs real-time computing in each control cycle, a novel dual-loop dynamic control scheme is proposed in this article, where a paralleled dual-loop tracking strategy is introduced to provide a more compatible scheme, which consists of two tracking loops: 1) the tension control loop and 2) the position control loop. In the former loop, the offline tension distribution is adopted to avoid cable hanging loosely and the real-time feasibility of the distribution method is no longer a necessary demand. In the latter loop, due to the complex dynamics characterized by the cable-driven form, the cooperative motion relation among multiple cables and inevitable external disturbances are investigated comprehensively, and the robust synchronization method is included to guarantee the high-precision position control. Afterward, the Lyapunov method is adopted to analyze the strict stability of the whole closed-loop system with both the position and tension control feedback. The experiments indicate that by synthesizing the two control loops, the proposed scheme can dramatically reduce the tracking errors in the trajectory tracking while avoiding the cable relaxation, and particularly, has a satisfactory control effect when the velocity and acceleration of the trajectory have significant oscillations. Additionally, the strong disturbance rejection ability is also validated via robustness experiments.