Improving the Positional Accuracy of Industrial Robots by Forward Kinematic Calibration using Laser Tracker System

Khanesar, Mojtaba A.; Piano, Samanta; Branson, David

Abstract

Precision object handling and manipulation require precise positioning of industrial robots. The common practice to perform end effector positioning is to use joint angle readings and industrial robot forward kinematics. However, forward kinematics of the robot rely on its DH parameter values which include uncertainties. Sources of uncertainty associated with robot forward kinematics include mechanical wear, manufacturing, assembly tolerances, and robot dimensional measurement errors. It is therefore highly required to increase the precision of DH parameter values. In this paper, we use heuristic optimization approaches to perform industrial robot DH parameter calibration. To perform this task, a highly accurate laser tracker system, Leica AT960-MR is utilized. The precision of this non-contact metrology device is less than 3?m/m and therefore it can be easily used to calibrate industrial robots with precision of 0.1mm. Heuristic optimization approaches such as genetic algorithm, particle swarm optimization, and differential evolution are used to perform the calibration using laser tracker position data as their target values. It is observed that using the proposed approach, the accuracy of industrial robot FKs in terms of mean absolute errors of static and near-static motion over all three position dimensions decreases from its measured value 66.5?m to 51.6?m (more than 22.4% improvement).

Citation

Khanesar, M. A., Piano, S., & Branson, D. (2022). Improving the Positional Accuracy of Industrial Robots by Forward Kinematic Calibration using Laser Tracker System. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO 2022) (263-270). https://doi.org/10.5220/0011340200003271

• Conference Name: 19th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO 2022)
• Conference Location: Lisbon, Portugal
• Start Date: Jul 14, 2022
• End Date: Jul 16, 2022
• Acceptance Date: Jun 1, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Jul 16, 2022
• Publication Date: Jul 16, 2022
• Deposit Date: Jul 20, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 20, 2022
• Pages: 263-270
• Series Title: International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO)
• Series ISSN: 2184-2809
• Book Title: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO 2022)
• ISBN: 9789897585852
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5220/0011340200003271
• Keywords: Positional Accuracy; Forward Kinematic Calibration; Laser Tracker System; Multi-output Least Squares; Support Vector Regression
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/9088752
• Related Public URLs: https://icinco.scitevents.org/