A survey of offline precision calibration of industrial robots

Abstract

As the need for precision and efficiency grows in industrial manufacturing, the accuracy of industrial robots assumes paramount importance. Nevertheless, factors, such as mechanical structures and assembly processes often introduce errors, compromising robots' positioning and repeatability accuracy. Consequently, precise calibration and compensation of these errors are paramount for optimizing robots’ performance. A thorough analysis of error sources and the establishment of error models in industrial robots are conducted in the present study, with special attention paid to offline calibration methods. This paper reviews the robot error model building methods and offline accuracy calibration techniques, summarizes the technical difficulties of the calibration task, and proposes the future development direction for the difficulties such as the complexity of error modeling, the difficulty of non-motor calibration calculation, and the traditional stiffness compensation that does not meet the needs of the robot's operation process. The importance of this research lies in its potential to improve the accuracy and reliability of industrial robots, thus contributing to the development of industrial automation.