A Novel Kinematic Calibration Method for a Handling Robot Based on Optimal Trajectory Planning

Kinematic calibration is of great significance to the application of handling robot in the field of stamping industry. In this paper, a novel kinematic calibration method of a 5-DOF handling robot is proposed based on optimal trajectory planning. In order to illustrate our independently developed mechanical structure composed of three rotary joints and two translational joints, the forward kinematic model is constructed using the MDH method. And then, we establish the error model according to the difference between the theoretical position and actual position of robot end effector. Furthermore, a low cost vision measurement system is designed with single camera and self-designed target, while the optimal trajectory for kinematic calibration consisted of calibration points is obtained by Genetic Algorithm (GA). Finally, two simulation experiments are executed to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of our kinematic calibration method.