Non-intervene cable wrapping method for precise cable drive

Precise cable drive has been widely used in many types of industrial, commercial, aerospace, military, medical and research applications as an alternative to gearbox, belt and pulleys, chains and sprocket and other currently available transmission. Significant advantages of precise cable drive include backlash free, high stiffness, high efficiency, no lubrication etc. Cable wrapping design is one of the most important issues for cable drive safety. A non-intervene cable wrapping method is presented in this paper, which can eliminate the wear between the incoming cable and outgoing cable and decrease the scrubbing between the cable and groove. The non-intervene cable wrapping method includes axial cable travel consistency, cable-groove match and different-groove wrapping strategy. Firstly, the improved equation for matching the cable axial travel is developed to determine the capstan helixes. Secondly, advantages and disadvantages of several different cable groove match are analyzed and selection consideration for the perfect cable-groove match is elucidated. Thirdly, A different-groove wrapping strategy is presented and the decline angle is deduced which can be used to determine the optimum transmission parameters for precise cable drive. Finally, the non-intervene cable wrapping method is used successfully to design a cable drive setup, which confirms the general validity of the work presented in this paper.