The XXL Robotics Platform is one of the seven arms of the TIRREX Technology Program, an ambitious project bringing together all the major players in public French robotics research (CNRS, INRIA, CEA, INRAe), aimed at creating a cable driven robot capable of spanning vast distances. Cable-Driven Parallel Robots (CDPR) are a class of parallel robots that use cables to link the end effector to actuators instead of rigid links. Most existing CDPRs in the market only use cables to translate the robot in 3D-space; this project however, aims to use cables to actuate the end effector of the robot as well.

During the summer break of my master's programme, I worked with Dr. Stéphane Caro - Research Director at CNRS and a world leader in the field of CDPRs - to design the initial concepts for the XXL Robotics Platform. As a member of the RoMaS team, I worked closely with the researchers there to study, design, and test cable driven actuators at Laboratoire des sciences du numérique de Nantes (LS2N). In addition to my design efforts, I also conducted months-long experiments and authored a research paper with Dr. Bozhao Wang to characterize the creep properties of polymer cables used in CDPRs.