Modeling and calibration of high-order joint-dependent kinematic errors of serial robot based on local POE

Purpose This paper aims to address the issue of model discontinuity typically encountered in traditional Denavit-Hartenberg (DH) models. To achieve this, we propose the use of a local Product of Exponentials (POE) approach. Additionally, a modified calibration model is presented which takes into account both kinematic errors and high-order joint-dependent kinematic errors. Both kinematic errors and high-order joint-dependent kinematic errors are analyzed to modify the model. Design/methodology/approach Robot positioning accuracy is critically important in high-speed and heavy-load manufacturing applications. One essential problem encountered in calibration of series robot is that the traditional methods only consider fitting kinematic errors, while ignoring joint-dependent kinematic errors. Findings Laguerre polynomials are chosen to fitting kinematic errors and high-order joint-dependent kinematic errors which can avoid the Runge phenomenon of curve fitting to a great extent. Levenberg–Marquard algorithm, which is insensitive to overparameterization and can effectively deal with redundant parameters, is used to quickly calibrate the modified model. Experiments on an EFFORT ER50 robot are implemented to validate the efficiency of the proposed method; compared with the Chebyshev polynomial calibration methods, the positioning accuracy is improved from 0.2301 to 0.2224 mm. Originality/value The results demonstrate the substantial improvement in the absolute positioning accuracy achieved by the proposed calibration methods on an industrial serial robot.