Calibration of industrial robots using a novel single camera system

New techniques were investigated for efficient automatic calibration of robots using a novel optical measurement device, the Reseau Scanning Camera (RSC). The camera's versatility with respect to both automatic measurement of robot endeffector and axes positions and its integration into a state-of-the-art quality control environment inside a workcell indicates its practical use for a variety of robot manufacturing and handling tasks. The proposed measuring procedure follows a two step approach: compensation of the geometrical influences which partially cause in part the imperfect kinematical behavior of the robot and the adjustment of the robot's goal positions inside the workcell. Simulations were performed to evaluate and optimize the developed algorithms for robot calibration before implementing them in two different robot workcells.