Design of Detachable Winch System for Field-Deployable Cable Driven Parallel Robot

Abstract This paper describes a mobile cable driven parallel robot that can be temporarily mounted on existing structures like lamp posts or trees. Existing works have introduced various concepts for mobile cable driven parallel robots and analyzed some of their characteristics like workspace. The proposed robots require either heavy equipment like truck-mounted telescoping poles, or deformative installation techniques like using concrete anchors in existing structures. Those works ignored the design of the hardware to which the winches would be attached. The present article is the first describing the design of a winch system and its attachment method for an ultra-portable cable driven parallel robot, one that can be quickly mounted and unmounted from existing structures. A novel application for robotics is selected as a case study and relevant performance goals drive the design of a mountable cable driven parallel robot winch. The design is fabricated and shown in the field. The prototype mounts to trees in such a way that the growth of the tree is not inhibited. This is achieved by using nylon ratchet straps to affix the robot winches. This design represents an extremely low-cost and portable approach to cable driven parallel robots because no structure needs to be constructed.