On the Reconfiguration of Cable-Driven Parallel Robots with Multiple Mobile Cranes

This paper proposes a Cable-Driven Parallel Robot (CDPR) with three mobile cranes for search-and-rescue operations. Each mobile crane is composed of a reconfigurable telescopic boom which can be rotated. A cable is mounted from the tip of the telescopic boom to the end-effector. The locations of mobile cranes are fixed but the configuration of the telescopic boom can be adjusted to enlarge the workspace and to maintain the overall system in equilibrium. The static equilibrium of end-effector and mobile cranes is initially studied to determine the cable tension distribution and wrench-feasible-workspace. To guarantee all mobile cranes to be always in static equilibrium when executing a given task, the telescopic booms are reconfigured. Three case studies for the reconfigurable CDPR with multiple mobile cranes are presented to compare the tension distribution and workspace size.