Chain driven robots: An industrial application opportunity. A planar case approach

This work presents Chain-Driven Parallel Robots replacing cables by chains. The use of conventional sprockets adds some important advantages with regards to Cable-Driven Parallel Robots. The most important ones are: a) no drum is required; b) no cable plasticity limitation must be imposed; c) using counterweights the manipulator can move the required payload with low motorization. In this paper some design considerations for allowing an accurate positioning and maximizing the robot workspace are presented. As example, a 2 Degrees-of-Freedom planar manipulator has been designed and built. The robot can command a 60Â kg payload into a 0.8 m × 1.8 m workspace using only two 150W DC motor.