Design and Testing of Wireless Motion Gauges for Two Collaborative Robot Arms

Abstract Most existing robot performance evaluation methods focus on single robotic arms performing independent motion tasks. In this paper, a motion gauge is proposed to evaluate the symmetrical coordinated-motion performance between two robotic arms. For this evaluation, the proposed device monitors the relative distance between the two robotic arms in real-time, which is used to evaluate the coordinated-motion errors with respect to accuracy, and repeatability between the two arms. The proposed metrology device is composed of two linear displacement sensors sliding on a linear rail, two ball-and-socket magnetic couplers for mounting to robotic arms, and a wireless communication module for data transmission. For validation, the proposed system monitored the two robotic arms programmed to simulate symmetrical coordinated motions.