Metrology-integrated industrial robots : calibration, implementation and testing

Abstract

This paper presents integration of a metrology system and an industrial robot. The metrology system consists of a laser tracker that measures the distance to a prism with high accuracy and a camera that through photogrammetry measures the orientation of a reflector. Both laser prism and camera reflector is integrated to a 6D-Reflector that is attached close to the TCP of an industrial robot. Tracker and robot is connected to a PC on a TCP/IP network. The PC takes measurements with the tracker, and thereby compensates the robot to reach high absolute accuracy in the robot positioning (+/-50 μm). The 6D-Reflector has multi-functionality and simplifies calibration procedures. This paper explains the architecture of the system and the methods for calibration.