• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.375-380
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• 2011

Loading/unloading at sea is necessitated as larger container ships are being used. It is also unavoidable to load/unload at sea during military operations. An experimental cable array robot system, which can be used for loading/unloading at sea, consisting of four cables operated by four motors is designed and built. Even though it has simple structure, it has a large pay-load/robot-weight ratio, flexibility and wide workspace and can be easily built at low cost. In order to plan and control the paths of end-effector, two interpolation methods are introduced and compared. Since the robot is entirely based on cable tension, an analysis of tension is also presented for monitoring and planning purpose.