A Kinematic Model for Parallel-Joint Coordinate Measuring Machine

Abstract

The typical nonorthogonal coordinate measuring machine is the portable coordinate measuring machine (PCMM), which is widely applied in manufacturing. In order to improve the measurement accuracy of PCMM, structural designing, data processing, mathematical modeling, and identification of parameters of PCMM, which are essential for the measurement accuracy, should be taken into account during the machine development. In this paper, a kind of PCMM used for detecting the crucial dimension of automobile chassis has been studied and calibrated. The Denavit–Hartenberg (D–H) kinematic modeling method has often been used for modeling traditional robot, but the D–H error representation is ill-conditioned when it is applied to represent parallel joints. A modified four-parameter model combined with D–H model is put forward for this PCMM. Based on the kinematic model, Gauss–Newton method is applied for calibrating the kinematic parameters. The experimental results indicate the improvement of measuring accuracy and the effectiveness of the PCMM based on the proposed method.