Optimal Design of a Cable-Driven Parallel Mechanism for Lunar Takeoff Simulation

The technology of taking off from the lunar is of great importance for the returning of spacecraft from lunar. To verify the stability of spacecraft when taking off lunar, the force state of the spacecraft needs to be simulated accurately. Traditional simulation mechanisms are unable to meet the simulation requirements of lunar takeoff. A 6-DOF lunar takeoff simulation device with nine cables is introduced and optimized in this paper. Firstly, the dynamic workspace of cable-driven parallel mechanism, which under the condition that the quality, the vertical acceleration and the horizontal acceleration are 15 kg, 2.4 m/s² and ±1.1 m/s² respectively, is analyzed when the acceleration requirements of simulation mechanisms is taken into consideration. Then the installation positions of cables are investigated in detail based on experimental design method and response surface method to achieve optimization results that could get the maximum dynamic workspace. Moreover, the virtual prototype experiment based on the multi-body dynamics model is utilized to verify the accuracy of the optimized results.