Reliable performance criteria for industrial robots

The standardisation of robot motion accuracy testing is an essential prerequisite for the reliable planning of specific industrial robot applications. Despite the obvious economic benefit of truly comparing robots of different manufacturers, the industrial acceptance of the existing standard ISO 9283 "Manipulating Industrial Robots - Performance Criteria and Related Test Methods" is rather poor. In this article, practical results obtained with the ISO standard using an automised testing procedure are discussed. These point out essential deficiencies of the standard with respect to requirements of teach-in and off-line program-ming for specific applications. Furthermore the European project "Improvement of Robot Industrial Standardisation (IRIS)" is intro-duced. Main objective of this project is to develop improved robot performance criteria which will be oriented towards the demands of robot users.