Advanced Sensor and Target Development to Support Robot Accuracy Degradation Assessment

This paper presents a vision-based, 6 degree of freedom (DOF) measurement system that can measure robot dynamic motions in real-time. A motorized target is designed as a part of the system to work with a vision-based measurement instrument, providing unique features to stand out from the background and enable the achievement of high accuracy monitored, assessed, and predicted to avoid a costly, unexpected shutdown, or decrease in manufacturing quality and production efficiency. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is developing the necessary measurement science to support the monitoring, diagnostics, and prognostics of robot systems by providing intelligence to enhance maintenance and control strategies. The robot accuracy degradation research includes the development of modeling and algorithm for the test method, advanced sensor and target development to accurately measure robot 6 DOF information, and algorithms to analyze the data. This paper focuses on the development of the advanced sensor and target. A use case shows the use of the measurement system on a Universal Robot to support the robot accuracy degradation assessment.