Development of an Ultrahigh Speed Robot FALCON Using Parallel Wire Drive Systems

In many kinds of industries, high speed robots are urgently required. In this paper, we propose an ultrahigh speed robot with 6 D. O. F. based on parallel wire mechanism. Because of low stiffness of wires, vibration problems arise in actuation. To overcome vibration probloms, internal forces among wires are effectively utilized. For this purpose, we analize the elasticity of wires and define two kinds of internal force stiffness. Basing on those results, we develop an ultrahigh speed robot FALCON-7 (FAst Load CONveyance Robot using seven wires) with six degrees of freedom. It is experimentally confirmed that the proposed robot attains to maximum speed 13[m/s] and the peak acceleration exceeds 40[G], even if considerably small D. C. motors (60[W]) are used.