Differential kinematics of a single-point-suspended manipulator with center-of-mass shift compensation

The single cable-suspended manipulator is suitable for special occasions such as aerial operation tasks of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and deep-well search and rescue. However, due to the lack of complete constraints at the base, the manipulator will have errors in end position due to the center-of-mass offset during the motion. In this paper, the model of CoM shifting is established, and the Jacobian matrix is improved based on this model, to realize the differential kinematics solution for the single cable-suspended manipulator. In addition, by introducing the constraint of CoM shift in the Jacobian matrix, it makes it possible to synchronize the planning of the motion of the end and the center of mass. This can effectively avoid the wobbling of the manipulator in the presence of elasticity or instability at the suspension point. Both simulation and prototype experiments effectively verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. Using the method of this paper, the average error of the trajectories in the z-axis and x-axis can be reduced from 27.0 ± 2.6 mm to 5.6 ± 3.4 mm, and 43.0 ± 64.2 mm to 3.3 ± 4.8 mm, respectively.