Two-step calibration of 6-DOF industrial robots by grouping kinematic parameters based on distance constraints

The positioning accuracy of industrial robots is critical for their applications, which can be improved through calibration. This paper proposes a two-step calibration method for six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) industrial robots to reduce couplings of their modified Denavit-Hartenberg (MD-H) model parameters during optimization processes of kinematic calibration. In this method, a distance error model is established based on the distance constraints, and the MD-H model parameters of the industrial robots are identified group by group using the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm. To determine the optimal MD-H model parameter grouping, the different grouping strategies are simulated and analyzed. In the proposed method, the coordinate system transformation between the measurement frame and the robot base frame can be avoided based on the distance error model, thereby reducing the errors introduced by the coordinate system transformation during the calibration process. Finally, the proposed two-step calibration method is verified through an experiment. The experimental result shows that the distance/positioning accuracy on the robot end-effector is improved from 0.602 mm/2.7317 mm to 0.151 mm/0.717 mm after calibration. The presented study may be beneficial for improving performance of industrial robots.