LAUSR

Abstract Cables are widely used because of their light weight and wide range of arrangement. To guarantee successful deployment and retraction of cable-driven mechanisms, this paper proposes a novel cable-winding device to fulfil particular requirements of a space mission, such as a large driving force output, large cable displacement, and high reliability. The device consists of three parts: the transmission assembly, cable arrangement assembly, and redundancy motor assembly. The transmission assembly transforms the torque of a motor into a large driving force. Cables can be wound layer-by-layer on a winch with the cable arrangement assembly. The redundancy motor assembly ensures normal movement of the mechanism if one motor fails, and can offer greater torque than a single motor. A prototype of the proposed cable-winding device is fabricated, and experiments are conducted to verify the performance of the device. The device has also been used in a large telescopic boom, which further validates its feasibility for actuating deployable mechanisms.