A Sliding Mode Control for a Planar 4-Cable Direct
Driven Robot
Xavier Aguas, Marco Herrera, Oscar Camacho and Paulo Leica
Departamento de Automatización y Control Industrial
Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Ecuador, Quito
Email: {xavier.aguas, marco.herrera, oscar.camacho, paulo.leica}@epn.edu.ec
Abstract—Cable Direct Driven Robots (CDDRs) are struc-
turally similar to parallel robots but these are formed by
replacing all the supporting rigid legs with cables, where the
motion of the end-effector is controlled through cables which are
pulled from actuators placed off-board the robot. CDDRs control
is a challenge due to the physical characteristics of cables because
these can only apply tensile forces and no compression. The aim
of this paper is to present a Sliding Mode Control (SMC) for a
Planar 4-Cable Direct Driven Robot, SMC is designed in order
to obtain fast system response and the robustness against the
model uncertainty. For the purpose of validating the proposed
controller the trajectory tracking test and model uncertainty test
were performed. Simulation was carried out for the proposed
controller and the results were compared with a PD Controller
in terms of Integral Square Error (ISE) index.
Index Terms—Cable Direct Driven Robots, Sliding Mode
Control, parallel manipulator, robustness, Tracking Trajectory
I. I NTRODUCTION
In recent years, Cable Direct Driven Robots (CDDRs) have
made huge advances into many industrial sectors [1] because
these robots are easy to install and well adapted to their
operating environment [2]. CDDRs are good candidates for
performing a broad range of applications such as pick-and-
place, cleanup of disaster areas, large radiotelescope, high
speed manipulation, sandblasting, suspended actuated cameras
for sport events and coconut farms [3]. CDDRs are a type
of parallel robot, wherein cables are used as its links [4],
while the cables length is changing, the end-effctor is forced
toward the desired position and orientation. CDDRs possess
some useful characteristics such as large workspace capability,
transportability, economical structure and maintenance than
conventional parallel robots, these advantages are presented
in [5]. However, substituting rigid links by cables presents
new defiances in the study of cable driven robots which are
distinct to conventional robots because the cables can only
apply tensile forces and no compression [6]. The majority
CDDRs are designed with actuation redundancy, i.e. more
cables than degrees of freedom in try to avert configurations
where certain wrenches require an impossible pushing force
in one or more cables [7]. Control for CDDRs have catched
the attention of many investigators since its high effect on
the performance of the robotic systems and different control
methods have been proposed for these robots as in [8] shows
the efficiency of the adaptive passivity-based controller when
there is no enough knowing about system parameters and
disturbances or as in [9] presents experimental performance of
robust PID using cables as an alternative to be used for very
large workspace applications to different desired trajectories.
Trajectory planning can be executed by considering only
kinematic and geometric constraints. However, for CDDRs,
dynamic constraints must also be considered in most cases,
due to the unilateral tension property of cables which can
exert only unidirectional forces on the payload [10]. The
principal difficulty in control is keeping positive tensions in
cables while the loads move, for this reason the Sliding Mode
Controllers (SMC) have been designed to obtain fast system
response for cable suspended loads [11]. In the process design
of CDDRs the most important stage is the simulation phase.
Simulators permit us to quickly test a new conception and
observe how this implementation fits our design wherein the
highly flexible nature of the cables is extremely challenging
to simulate [12]. In this paper the Planar 4-Cable CDDR
model [13] is considered since no rotational move and no
moment resistance are required at the end-effector. All 4 cables
convene in a single point and the end-effector is modelled
as a point mass. In order to obtain fast system response
and the robustness against the model uncertainty and external
disturbances a SMC is designed, wherein the control actions
are torques to the motors and not forces on end-effector as
in other researches. This approach provides faster tracking
capacity than the classical PD Controller as is showed in [14].
For the design of the proposed controller, end-effector and
motor dynamics of the system was modelled and integrated.
With the full system model, effects of motor parameters
can be considered to improve control. The performance of
this controller is compared with a PD Controller in several
parameter variations test in terms of integral square error
(ISE) index and a simulator was developed for this research
to observe the behavior of the cables during its trajectory. The
simulation results show the ability the proposed control law in
comparison with the classic control. The organization of this
paper is as follows: Section (II) describes the dynamics model
of Planar 4-Cable CDDR. Section (III), control strategies are
presented. Section (IV) provides the simulation results. Finally,
the conclusions are presented.
II. DYNAMICS M ODEL OF A P LANAR 4-C ABLE CDDR
This section shows a dynamics model of a Planar 4-Cable
CDDR for enhanced control [9]. The dynamics model refers
to relationship between the translational motion of the end- TABLE I
effector and the required active torques [13]. The Planar 4- D ESCRIPTION OF P LANAR 4-C ABLE CDDR PARAMETERS
Cable CDDR considered is shown in Fig. 1. The mass of
Parameter Description
cables is very small compared to the end-effector and it can
Ai Motor position
therefore be neglected.
θi Cable angle
Ri Pulley radio

J4 A4 3 cJ3 ti Cable tension

3 βi Pulley angle
c4 A3 β̇i Angular velocity of pulley
4 β̈i Angular acceleration of pulley
L4 L3
ci Viscous damping coefficients of motor
LB Ji Rotational inertial of motor
x, y
m τi Torque
L1
L2 2 i = 1, ..., 4
A1 1 c2
J1 c1 LB A2 J2    
J1 0 c1 0
where, J = 
 ..  and C = 
  ..  are

. .
Fig. 1. Planar 4-Cable CDDR Diagram [13]. 0 J4 0 c4
diagonal matrices. J is the rotational inertia matrix and C
The dynamics model for the end-effector with 2-dof is: is the rotational viscous damping coefficients matrix. β is
the pulley angles vector; τ is the torques vector produced by
M Ẍ = FR (1) motors; T is the cable tensions vector and R is the pulley
  radio. In order to present the cable tensions as a function of
m 0 T angular position and the motor torques, (2) is expressed as:
where M = is the mass matrix, X = [x y]
0 m
is the end-effector position and FR is the resultant force of 1
cables acting on the end-effector. In this paper is considered T = (τ − J β̈ − C β̇) (3)
R
the dynamics behavior of the lumped motor shaft/cable pulley.
Considering the dynamics model of the end-effector and the
Fig. 2 presents the motor shaft/cable pulley system where
motor shaft/cable pulley system, we can find the full dynamics
all βi are zero when the end-effector is situated at the origin
model of Planar 4-Cable CDDR. A right-handed positive angle
of frame (centroid of the square base). From this position, a
βi on a pulley will incite a negative change ∆Li = Li − L0i
right-handed positive angle βi causes a change in cable length.
in cable length i. The equation (4) shows this behavior.
The Planar 4-Cable CDDR parameters are shown in Table I.

βi R = −∆Li (4)
ti
Ai i
q
2 2
where Li = (x − Aix ) + (y − Aiy ) is the length for cable
q
Ri i and L0i = Aix 2 + Aiy 2 is the initial length for cable i.
The βi can be written as:

ci  i  q
2 2

i i 1 

L01 − (x − A1x ) + (y − A1y )

βi (X) =  .. 
(5)
R q . 

Ji 2
L04 − (x − A4x ) + (y − A4y )
2

The derivative with respect to time of (5) is calculated as:

Fig. 2. Scheme of motor shaft/cable pulley system [13].
∂β
β̇ = Ẋ (6)
The dynamics equation for motor shaft/cable pulley is ∂X
shown as follow: and    
d ∂β ∂β
J β̈ + C β̇ = τ − RT (2) β̈ = Ẋ + Ẍ (7)
dt ∂X ∂X
 TABLE II
T can be rewritten as in (8): P LANAR 4-C ABLE CDDR PARAMETERS
      Parameter Unit Description
1 d ∂β ∂β ∂β m=0.5 [kg] End-Effector mass
T = τ −J Ẋ + Ẍ − C Ẋ (8)
R dt ∂X ∂X ∂X Ri =0.03 [m] Pulley radio
ci =0.03 [N.s/m] Viscous damping coefficient
Ji =0.008 [kg.m2 ] Rotational inertia of motors
The dynamics model of Planar 4-Cable CDDR can be ex- A1 =(-0.20 -0.20) [m] Motor position 1
pressed in equations of motion for robotic system using A2 =(0.20 -0.20) [m] Motor position 2
translational statics jacobian matrix S in function of the cable A3 =(0.20 0.20) [m] Motor position 3
angles. A4 =(-0.20 0.20) [m] Motor position 4
 
−cos(θ1 ) −cos(θ2 ) −sin(θ3 ) −cos(θ4 )
S= (9)
−sin(θ1 ) −sin(θ2 ) −sin(θ3 ) −sin(θ4 ) A. PD Controller
The procedure to find the equations of motion for robotic In order to design a PD controller, it is necessary to know
system is shown as follows: the error. The control scheme of this controller is presented in
Fig. 3.
Equation (8) can be rewritten as:
X d (t ) e(t ) X (t )
Plant
     
d ∂β ∂β ∂β +
-
Kp +

RT = τ − J Ẋ − J Ẍ − C Ẋ (10) +

dt ∂X ∂X ∂X
By grouping (10) in terms of Ẋ and Ẍ: d
dt Kd
      
d ∂β ∂β ∂β
RT = τ − J +C Ẋ − J Ẍ
dt ∂X ∂X ∂X
(11) Fig. 3. PD controller scheme.
With the statics relationship ST = FR given in [13], T can
be represented in the form: The tracking error vector is defined as follows:
+
T = S FR (12)
e(t) = Xd (t) − X(t) (16)
T −1
where S + = S T (SS ) is the right pseudoinverse of statics
jacobian matrix. Replacing (1) in (12), T is written as: where Xd (t) is the desired position vector and X(t) is the
end-effector position vector. PD controller has the following
T = S + M Ẍ (13) form:
By combining (13) and (11), the equation of motion can be de(t)
expressed as: P D(t) = Kp e(t) + Kd (17)
dt
Applying this controller to dynamics model of Planar 4-Cable
 
∂β
   
d ∂β

∂β
 CDDR and in order to have a input as torques vector τ
S + RM + J Ẍ+ J +C Ẋ = τ is necessary multiply by S + because the controller directly
∂X dt ∂X ∂X
(14) applies a virtual force as control actions on end-effector.
The equation of motion can be written alternatively in the de(t)
following general form: uP D (t) = τ = S + (K p e(t) + Kd ) (18)
dt
where Kp and Kd are tuning parameters.
Meq (X)Ẍ + N (X, Ẋ)Ẋ = τ (15)
∂β B. Sliding Mode Controller
In this equation, Meq (X) = S + RM + J ∂X
In this subsection, a sliding mode controller for Planar 4-
 
d ∂β ∂β
and N (X, Ẋ) = J dt ∂X + C ∂X where Meq (X) is Cable CDDR based on the analysis dynamic of the robot in
section II. The scheme of this controller is illustrated in Fig. 4.
the inertial matrix and N (X, Ẋ) is the matrix of Coriolis.
The parameters considered of Planar 4-Cables CDDR in this X d (t ) X (t )
research are presented in Table II.
e(t )
+ 0 SMC
Plant
- u (t)  u (t) c d

III. D ESIGN OF C ONTROLLERS FOR A P LANAR 4-C ABLE

CDDR
d
dt 1
This section designs different controllers for Planar 4-
Cable (CDDR) based on the dynamics model. The designed Fig. 4. Sliding mode controller scheme.
controllers are a PD controller and a SMC.
 The tracking error vector is defined as follows: Therefore, by analysing:

e(t) = Xd (t) − X(t) (19) if σ(t) > 0 → sign(σ(t)) > 0

(31)
In order to apply a SMC, the sliding surface as in [15] is if σ(t) < 0 → sign(σ(t)) < 0
considered as: Finally, to reduce the chattering effect, (30) can be rewritten
as a sigmoid function:
σ(t) = λ0 e(t) + λ1 ė(t) (20)  
σ(t)
where λ0 and λ1 are positive parameters. ud (t) = Meq (X) k1 λ1 (32)
|σ(t)| + δ
This controller has two components: a continuous uc and a
discontinuous ud . where δ is chattering reduction tuning parameter. With this
controller based on the model we directly obtain torques as
u(t) = uc (t) + ud (t) (21) control actions and do not consider a virtual force like a PD
controller.
Now, the surface must be derived for development of the
controller: IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
A PD controller and a SMC were implemented in Mat-
σ̇(t) = λ0 ė(t) + λ1 ë(t) (22) lab/Simulink 2018a using the full dynamics model of Planar
4-Cable CDDR. To compare the control performance, a PD
By substituting (19) in (22):
controller was tuned as similar as the proposed controller. The
simulation has a duration of 80 seconds with a sampling time
σ̇(t) = λ0 ė(t) + λ1 (Ẍd (t) − Ẍ(t)) (23)
of 0.1 which uses the ODE45 solver method(Solve non-stiff
The continuous part of the controller is provided with the differential equations). Fig. 5 shows the simulator developed
condition to keep the output on the sliding surface σ̇(t) = 0: to observe the behavior of the cables during the trajectory.
λ0 Movement CDDR
Ẍ(t) = Ẍd (t) + ė(t) (24) 0.5
λ1
0.4
By replacing (24) in (15) , uc (t) can be written as: 0.3

0.2

λ0 0.1
uc (t) = Meq (X)Ẍd + Meq (X)ė(t) + N (X, Ẋ)Ẋ (25)
axis Y

λ1 0

To design ud (t), a positive-definite Lyapunov function V is -0.1

defined: -0.2

-0.3
1 T
V = σ(t) σ(t) > 0 (26) -0.4
2 -0.5
-0.5 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
The derivative of the function V must be negative-definite: axis X

T Fig. 5. Planar 4-Cable CDDR Simulator designed in Matlab/Simulink.

V̇ = σ(t) σ̇(t) < 0 (27)
By substituting (23) in (27) and considering that
−1 In order to prove the superiority of the proposed control
Ẍ = Meq (X) (u(t) − N (X, Ẋ)Ẋ):
law, ISE index is presented. The variation ∆% corresponds
to the comparison between PD Controller and the proposed
T control law.
V̇ = σ(t) [λ0 ė(t) + λ1 Ẍd
−1
− λ1 Meq (X) (u(t) − N (X, Ẋ)Ẋ)] (28) e1 − e2
∆% = e1 +e2 · 100 (33)
By replacing (21) and (25) in (28), V̇ can be rewritten as: 2
where e1 , e2 represent ISE index values for PD controller
T −1 and SMC respectively. Three tests were carried out:
V̇ = σ(t) (−λ1 Meq (X) ud (t)) (29)
• Tracking Trajectory
To satisfy (27), ud (t) should be: • Mass change
• Rotational inertia change
ud (t) = k1 Meq (X)sign(σ(t)) (30)
Finally, the values of Kp = 10 and Kd = 0.8 for PD
where k1 > 0 is a tuning parameter and Meq (X) is controller and λ0 = 90, λ1 = 5, k1 = 6 and δ = 0.1 for
symmetric and positive-definite matrix, these properties of SMC have been selected by trial and error until achieving the
Meq (X) is shown [16]. lowest ISE index.
A. Square Trajectory Test Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 demonstrate performance of the end-effector
In this test, the end-effector follows a square whose side trajectory tracking in workspace.
length is 0,4 [m]. This trajectory shows the response of the
Circular Trajectory
controller to the sudden changes which exist in each corner of 0.15

the trajectory. Fig. 6 shows the trajectory reference and real Reference
PD

movement of the end-effector. 0.1 SMC

0.05
Square Trajectory
0.2

axis y [m]
Reference
PD 0
0.15
SMC

0.1 -0.05

0.05
axis y [m]

-0.1
0

-0.15
-0.05 -0.15 -0.1 -0.05 0 0.05 0.1 0.15
axis x [m]
-0.1

-0.15 Fig. 8. XY graph, circular trajectory when mp = 0.15m.

-0.2
-0.2 -0.15 -0.1 -0.05 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 Circular Trajectory
axis x [m]
Reference
0 PD
SMC
Fig. 6. XY graph, square trajectory.

-0.05
Tracking performance is shown in Fig. 7. From this graph,
axis y [m]
one can notice that PD controller has degraded tracking
performance in the X direction.
-0.1

Square Trajectory

-0.1 Reference
PD -0.15
SMC
-0.02 -0.01 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08
-0.11 axis x [m]

-0.12 Fig. 9. XY graph, beginning of the circular trajectory when mp = 0.15m

axis y [m]

-0.13
Table IV shows ISE index in mass variation test when
-0.14 mp = 0.15m. PD controller presents oscillations on reaching
the trajectory while the proposed SMC reaches faster the
-0.15
reference and without oscillation problems.
0.146 0.147 0.148 0.149 0.15 0.151 0.152 0.153 0.154
axis x [m] TABLE IV
ISE M ASS VARIATION T EST
Fig. 7. XY graph, corner of square trajectory.
Position PD SMC ∆%
X 0.00136 5.491e-7 199.8386
Table III shows ISE index in traking trajectory test. The Y 0.00925 0.003289 95.079
result shows which PD controller has a constant error in steady
state.
C. Rotational Inertial Variation Test
TABLE III The Planar 4-Cable CDDR model is simulated using the
ISE S QUARE T RAJECTORY T EST.
following parameters: The rotational inertia is changed in
Position PD SMC ∆% motor 1 and 4 (J1 = 25J and J4 = 25J). Fig. 10 and
X 0.004063 0.003291 20.995 Fig. 11 llustrate dynamic behavior with the proposed control
Y 0.004158 0.003291 23.278
algorithm.
The result shows which the proposed SMC again has an
advantage over the conventional PD Controller. The position
B. Mass Variation Test outputs track the desired values pretty good and the steady
In this test, the end-effector mass is changed mp = 0.15m, state errors are very small. In the Table V presents the
where mp is the test mass and m is the end-effector mass. comparison between both controllers.
 0.2
Circular Trajectory ment of the project PIJ-15-17 ”Development and construction
Reference of a PID-robust prototype based on advanced control tech-
0.15 PD
SMC niques to improve the robustness of industrial processes”
0.1
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for circular and square trajectories. The simulation results
indicate that controller proposed presents robustness against
the model uncertainty when some parameters of robot model
were changed. The results of SMC controller for square
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present lower ISE index than PD controller. In brief, SMC
shows the robustness to the parameter uncertainties.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support
provided by the Escuela Politécnica Nacional, for the develop-