Facade Inspection: Design, Prototyping, and Testing of a Hybrid Cable-Driven Parallel Robot

TL;DR

This paper presents the design, prototyping, and testing of a novel hybrid cable-driven parallel robot tailored for vertical facade inspections, combining cable and mechanical mechanisms for efficient building facade monitoring.

Contribution

It introduces a new five-degree-of-freedom hybrid cable-driven robot with a simplified torque transmission mechanism and validated control system for facade inspection tasks.

Findings

Successful prototype development using additive manufacturing.

Effective control system for zig-zag trajectory tracking.

Enhanced inspection efficiency and precision.

Abstract

In the field of architecture, early detection of damage or degradation of building facades has become increasingly vital due to the need for continuous monitoring of structural integrity. Traditional methods, such as visual inspections, are being supplemented by technological advancements, especially in robotics, which offer innovative solutions for more efficient and precise inspections. This work focuses on the development of a five degree of freedom hybrid cable-driven parallel robot designed for vertical facade inspections. A detailed robot's design and CAD modeling, with a particular focus on a torque transmission mechanism that simplifies the motion of two cables using a single motor is presented. Two degrees of freedom are driven by cables, while the remaining three are driven by a Sarrus-type mechanism and a pan-tilt mechanism. The inverse kinematics models are also developed. A prototype is presented, involving additive manufacturing. A control system for tracking a zig-zag trajectory, commonly used in inspection tasks, was experimentally validated.