A calibration method of kinematic parameters for serial industrial robots
Abstract
Purpose
Calibrating kinematic parameters is one of the efficient ways to improve the robot's positioning accuracy. A method based on the product-of-exponential (POE) formula to calibrate the kinematic parameters of serial industrial robots is proposed. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The forward kinematics is established, and the general positioning error model is deduced in an explicit expression. A simplified model of robot's positioning error is established as both the error of reference configuration and the error of rigid displacement of the base coordinating system with respect to the measuring coordinating system are equivalently transferred to the zero position errors of the robot's joints. A practical calibration model is forwarded only requiring 3D measuring based on least-squares algorithm. The calibration system and strategy for calibrating kinematic parameters are designed.
Findings
By the two geometrical constrains between the twist coordinates, each joint twist only has four independent coordinates. Due to the equivalent error model, the zero position error of each joint can cover the error of reference configuration and rigid displacement of the robot base coordinating system with respect to the measuring coordinating system. The appropriate number of independent kinematic parameters of each joint to be calibrated is five.
Originality/value
It is proved by a group of calibration experiments that the calibration method is well conditioned and can be used to promote the level of absolute error of end effector of industrial robot to 2.2 mm.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China, Ministry of Education of China, for financing this work.
Citation
Wang, W., Wang, G. and Yun, C. (2014), "A calibration method of kinematic parameters for serial industrial robots", Industrial Robot, Vol. 41 No. 2, pp. 157-165. https://doi.org/10.1108/IR-06-2013-369
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited