Cable-driven parallel robots (CDPR)
![ware house robot](/mechatronic-vehicle-systems-lab/sites/default/files/uploads/images/warehousingrobot.jpg)
Cable-driven parallel robots are a special class of robotic manipulators that consist of a rigid end-effector actuated and constrained by a number of cables. CDPRs offer a number of significant advantages over traditional rigid mechanisms: cables are extremely light, low cost, and easily reconfigured.
As a result, CDPRs are able to command very-high accelerations with relatively small actuators and span large workspaces that would be impossible using rigid structures. Aside from the various benefits, CDPRs also contain a number of unique technical challenges stemming from the uni-directional force capacity of the constraining cables.
These challenges include platform vibrations resulting from low manipulator stiffness and the potential for collisions between cables and obstacles in the environment.
![cable robot diagram and specifications](/mechatronic-vehicle-systems-lab/sites/default/files/uploads/images/screen_shot_2021-03-15_at_2.36.09_pm.png)
New applications of cable-driven robots
Firefighting is among the applications which still has not robotic solution. Aerial cable towed robots with land-fixed winches is a novel class of CDPRs which is benefiting from the agility of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as well as the power of land-winches to hold and move an aerial platform. Such novel class of CDPRs can be used for autonomous firefighting applications in different environments as shown below.
![aerial robot](/mechatronic-vehicle-systems-lab/sites/default/files/uploads/images/areial_robot.png)