Dongping Zhao, Gangfeng Wang, Jizhuang Hui, Wei Hou and Richard David Evans
The assembly quality of complex products is pivotal to their lifecycle performance. Assembly precision analysis (APA) is an effective method used to check the feasibility and…
Abstract
Purpose
The assembly quality of complex products is pivotal to their lifecycle performance. Assembly precision analysis (APA) is an effective method used to check the feasibility and quality of assembly. However, there is still a need for a systematic approach to be developed for APA of kinematic mechanisms. To achieve more accurate analysis of kinematic assembly, this paper aims to propose a precision analysis method based on equivalence of the deviation source.
Design/methodology/approach
A unified deviation vector representation model is adopted by considering dimension deviation, geometric deviation, joint clearance and assembly deformation. Then, vector loops and vector equations are constructed, according to joint type and deviation propagation path. A combined method, using deviation accumulation and sensitivity modeling, is applied to solve the kinematic APA of complex products.
Findings
When using the presented method, geometric form deviation, joint clearance and assembly deformation are considered selectively during tolerance modeling. In particular, the proposed virtual link model and its orientation angle are developed to determine joint deviation. Finally, vector loops and vector equations are modeled to express deviation accumulation.
Originality/value
The proposed method provides a new means for the APA of complex products, considering joint clearance and assembly deformation while improving the accuracy of APA, as much as possible.
Details
Keywords
Dan Zhao, Yunbo Bi and Yinglin Ke
This paper aims to propose a united kinematic calibration method for a dual-machine system in automatic drilling and riveting. The method takes both absolute and relative pose…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to propose a united kinematic calibration method for a dual-machine system in automatic drilling and riveting. The method takes both absolute and relative pose accuracy into account, which will largely influence the machining accuracy of the dual-machine system and assembly quality.
Design/methodology/approach
A comprehensive kinematic model of the dual-machine system is established by the superposition of sub-models with pose constraints, which involves base frame parameters, kinematic parameters and tool frame parameters. Based on the kinematic model and the actual pose error data measured by a laser tracker, the parameters of coordinated machines are identified by the Levenberg–Marquardt method as a multi-objective nonlinear optimization problem. The identified parameters of the coordinated machines will be used in the control system.
Findings
A new calibration method for the dual-machine system is developed, including a comprehensive kinematic model and an efficient parameter identification method. The experiment results show that with the proposed method, the pose accuracy of the dual-machine system was remarkably improved, especially the relative position and orientation errors.
Practical implications
This method has been used in an aircraft assembly project. The calibrated dual-machine system shows a good performance on system coordination and machining accuracy.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a new method with high accuracy and efficiency for the dual-machine system calibration. The research can be extended to multi-machine and multi-robot fields to improve the system precision.
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Keywords
Wenmin Chu, Xiang Huang and Shuanggao Li
With the improvement of modern aircraft requirements for safety, long life and economy, higher quality aircraft assembly is needed. However, due to the manufacturing and assembly…
Abstract
Purpose
With the improvement of modern aircraft requirements for safety, long life and economy, higher quality aircraft assembly is needed. However, due to the manufacturing and assembly errors of the posture adjustment mechanism (PAM) used in the digital assembly of aircraft large component (ALC), the posture alignment accuracy of ALC is difficult to be guaranteed, and the posture adjustment stress is easy to be generated. Aiming at these problems, this paper aims to propose a calibration method of redundant actuated parallel mechanism (RAPM) for posture adjustment.
Design/methodology/approach
First, the kinematics model of the PAM is established, and the influence of the coupling relationship between the axes of the numerical control locators (NCL) is analyzed. Second, the calibration method based on force closed-loop feedback is used to calibrate each branch chain (BC) of the PAM, and the solution of kinematic parameters is optimized by Random Sample Consensus (RANSAC). Third, the uncertainty of kinematic calibration is analyzed by Monte Carlo method. Finally, a simulated posture adjustment system was built to calibrate the kinematics parameters of PAM, and the posture adjustment experiment was carried out according to the calibration results.
Findings
The experiment results show that the proposed calibration method can significantly improve the posture adjustment accuracy and greatly reduce the posture adjustment stress.
Originality/value
In this paper, a calibration method based on force feedback is proposed to avoid the deformation of NCL and bracket caused by redundant driving during the calibration process, and RANSAC method is used to reduce the influence of large random error on the calibration accuracy.
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Keywords
Jinlei Zhuang, Ruifeng Li, Chuqing Cao, Yunfeng Gao, Ke Wang and Feiyang Wang
This paper aims to propose a measurement principle and a calibration method of measurement system integrated with serial robot and 3D camera to identify its parameters…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to propose a measurement principle and a calibration method of measurement system integrated with serial robot and 3D camera to identify its parameters conveniently and achieve high measurement accuracy.
Design/methodology/approach
A stiffness and kinematic measurement principle of the integrated system is proposed, which considers the influence of robot weight and load weight on measurement accuracy. Then an error model is derived based on the principle that the coordinate of sphere center is invariant, which can simultaneously identify the parameters of joint stiffness, kinematic and hand-eye relationship. Further, considering the errors of the parameters to be calibrated and the measurement error of 3D camera, a method to generate calibration observation data is proposed to validate both calibration accuracy and parameter identification accuracy of calibration method.
Findings
Comparative simulations and experiments of conventional kinematic calibration method and the stiffness and kinematic calibration method proposed in this paper are conducted. The results of the simulations show that the proposed method is more accurate, and the identified values of angle parameters in modified Denavit and Hartenberg model are closer to their real values. Compared with the conventional calibration method in experiments, the proposed method decreases the maximum and mean errors by 19.9% and 13.4%, respectively.
Originality/value
A new measurement principle and a novel calibration method are proposed. The proposed method can simultaneously identify joint stiffness, kinematic and hand-eye parameters and obtain not only higher measurement accuracy but also higher parameter identification accuracy, which is suitable for on-site calibration.
Details
Keywords
Bo Cheng, Bo Wang, Shujun Chen, Ziqiang Zhang and Jun Xiao
The purpose of this study is to improve the accuracy of industrial robot kinematic parameter identification and position accuracy by solving the problem of insufficient…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to improve the accuracy of industrial robot kinematic parameter identification and position accuracy by solving the problem of insufficient consideration of error sources in the kinematic parameter identification model and optimizing the selection of measurement pose set.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, a kinematic calibration method for industrial robots considering multiple error sources is proposed. Based on the Modified Denavit Hartenberg (MD-H) model, a robot kinematics identification model including joint reduction ratio error, target ball installation error and coordinate system transformation error is established. Taking the optimal observability index O1 and the minimum flexible deformation as the optimization objectives, a measurement pose set optimization method based on Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) is proposed to obtain a measurement pose set with higher identification accuracy.
Findings
Through experiments conducted with the Nantong Zhenkang ZK1400-6 robot as the test subject, the kinematic parameters identified by the optimized measurement pose set are more accurate than the randomly selected measurement pose set, and the positioning accuracy of the robot is improved from 2.11 to 0.31 mm, an increase of 85.3%.
Originality/value
This study introduces a position error model that comprehensively accounts for the error sources causing positioning inaccuracies. Building on this foundation, a novel flexible deformation index is proposed to quantify the flexible deformation in the measurement pose set, thereby reducing the impact of such deformation on the position error in the model. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, this study presents an optimization method for the measurement pose set based on NSGA-II, using the flexible deformation index and observability index as objectives for multi-objective optimization, simultaneously optimizing the pose error and Jacobian matrix in the error model.
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Keywords
Ming Li and Rongsheng Lu
The purpose of this paper is to present a high-precision method for localizing the Target Ball of an industrial robot, using Binocular Stereo Vision (BSV).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a high-precision method for localizing the Target Ball of an industrial robot, using Binocular Stereo Vision (BSV).
Design/methodology/approach
The steps for modeling the kinematics of a flexible robot include three steps. First, the kinematic model was developed, and robot motion tests were conducted, which is multiple sets of static joint angle motions. The kinematic parameters were calibrated based on a laser tracker and BSV, respectively. Second, the dynamics model was developed and operate the robot to perform motions, which is Fourier series excitation trajectories. The dynamics parameters were calibrated. Third, the static joint angles were brought into the dynamics model to calculate the external forces and moments of each joint. The stiffness parameters were calibrated.
Findings
The experimental results show that after calibrating the kinematic parameters of the Target Ball, the Target Ball positioning error approximately 4.597 mm. After calibrating the kinematic parameters of the Spherically Mounted Retro and stiffness parameters, the Target Ball positioning error is reduced from about 6.962 mm to approximately 4.956 mm, which is close to 4.597 mm.
Research limitations/implications
The limitation of the approach is that, kinematic model and dynamics model are both required. Therefore, the high openness degree of robot is required, the robot needs to support path planning functions and joint moment extraction. However, some mature commercial robots do not support this.
Originality/value
In this paper, the stiffness model could effectively replace the calibration of the kinematic parameters of the load.
Details
Keywords
Guozhi Li, Fuhai Zhang, Yili Fu and Shuguo Wang
The purpose of this paper is to propose an error model for serial robot kinematic calibration based on dual quaternions.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose an error model for serial robot kinematic calibration based on dual quaternions.
Design/methodology/approach
The dual quaternions are the combination of dual-number theory and quaternion algebra, which means that they can represent spatial transformation. The dual quaternions can represent the screw displacement in a compact and efficient way, so that they are used for the kinematic analysis of serial robot. The error model proposed in this paper is derived from the forward kinematic equations via using dual quaternion algebra. The full pose measurements are considered to apply the error model to the serial robot by using Leica Geosystems Absolute Tracker (AT960) and tracker machine control (T-MAC) probe.
Findings
Two kinematic-parameter identification algorithms are derived from the proposed error model based on dual quaternions, and they can be used for serial robot calibration. The error model uses Denavit–Hartenberg (DH) notation in the kinematic analysis, so that it gives the intuitive geometrical meaning of the kinematic parameters. The absolute tracker system can measure the position and orientation of the end-effector (EE) simultaneously via using T-MAC.
Originality/value
The error model formulated by dual quaternion algebra contains all the basic geometrical parameters of serial robot during the kinematic calibration process. The vector of dual quaternion error can be used as an indicator to represent the trend of error change of robot’s EE between the nominal value and the actual value. The accuracy of the EE is improved after nearly 20 measurements in the experiment conduct on robot SDA5F. The simulation and experiment verify the effectiveness of the error model and the calibration algorithms.
Details
Keywords
Joonyoung Kim, Sung‐Rak Kim, Soo‐Jong Kim and Dong‐Hyeok Kim
The purpose of this paper is to maximize the speed of industrial robots by obtaining the minimum‐time trajectories that satisfy various constraints commonly given in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to maximize the speed of industrial robots by obtaining the minimum‐time trajectories that satisfy various constraints commonly given in the application of industrial robots.
Design/methodology/approach
The method utilizes the dynamic model of the robot manipulators to find the maximum kinematic constraints that are used with conventional trajectory patterns, such as trapezoidal velocity profiles and cubic polynomial functions.
Findings
The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can decrease the motion times substantially compared with the conventional kinematic method.
Practical implications
Although the method used a dynamic model, the computational burden is minimized by calculating dynamics only at certain points, enabling implementation of the method online. The proposed method is tested on more than 40 different types of robots made by Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd (HHI). The method is successfully implemented in Hi5, a new generation of HHI robot controller.
Originality/value
The paper shows that the method is computationally very simple compared with other minimum‐time trajectory‐planning methods, thus making it suitable for online implementation.
Details
Keywords
Nicolas Andreff, Pierre Renaud, Philippe Martinet and Franc¸ois Pierrot
Presents the kinematic calibration of an H4 parallel prototype robot using a vision‐based measuring device. Calibration is performed according to the inverse kinematic model method…
Abstract
Presents the kinematic calibration of an H4 parallel prototype robot using a vision‐based measuring device. Calibration is performed according to the inverse kinematic model method, using first the design model then a model developed for calibration purpose. To do so, the end‐effector pose (i.e. position and orientation) has to be measured with the utmost accuracy. Thus, first the practical accuracy of the low‐cost vision‐based measuring system is evaluated to have a precision in the order of magnitude of 10μ_it;m and 10−3° for a 1,024×768 pixel CCD camera. Second, the prototype is calibrated using the easy‐to‐install vision system, yielding a final positioning accuracy of the end‐effector reduced from more than 1cm down to less than 0.5mm. Also provides a discussion on the use of such a method on commercial systems.
Details
Keywords
Yanbing Ni, Biao Zhang, Wenxia Guo and Cuiyan Shao
The purpose of this paper is to develop a means of the kinematic calibration of a parallel manipulator with full-circle rotation.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a means of the kinematic calibration of a parallel manipulator with full-circle rotation.
Design/methodology/approach
An error-mapping model based on the space vector chain is formulated and parameter identification is proposed based on double ball-bar (DBB) measurements. The measurement trajectory is determined by the motion characteristics of this mechanism and whether the error sources can be identified. Error compensation is proposed by modifying the inputs, and a two-step kinematic calibration method is implemented.
Findings
The simulation and experiment results show that this kinematic calibration method is effective. The DBB length errors and the position errors in the end-effector of the parallel manipulator with full-circle rotation are greatly reduced after error compensation.
Originality/value
By establishing the mapping relationship between measured error data and geometric error sources, the error parameters of this mechanism are identified; thus, the pose errors are unnecessary to be measured directly. The effectiveness of the kinematic calibration method is verified by computer simulation and experiment. This proposed calibration method can help the novel parallel manipulator with full-circle rotation and other similar parallel mechanisms to improve their accuracy.