End Position Detection of Industrial Robots Based on Laser Tracker

Abstract

The end position of industrial robots cannot be measured directly. To solve the problem, this paper proposes an end position detection method for industrial robots based on laser tracker. First, the target ball was fixed onto the end flange of a six degree-of-freedom (DOF) industrial robot by the laser target. Then, the conversion between different coordinate systems was obtained through two experiments. In the first experiment, the end of the robot rotated about the axes of the robot tool coordinate system (RTCS). The second experiment is about the single-joint rotation of the robot. Based on the conversion relationship, the author computed the deviation of the end position read on the robot controller from the position that the end actually arrives at. Experimental results show that the proposed method is feasible for online detection of the end position for industrial robots. The research lays the basis for calibrating geometric parameters of industrial robots, and provides a guide on improving the positioning accuracy of industrial robots.