Estimating the essential parameter space of the robot manipulator dynamics

A method is presented for estimating the dynamic parameters of a robot manipulator. Based upon the theorem of conservation of energy, the method is equally applicable to serial link manipulators and graph structured manipulators. The study is composed of four major tasks: formulation of the equations for the energy content of the manipulator; identification of a set of basis vectors which span the parameter space; formulation of the estimation equation; and simulation and testing of the method. The method is shown to be conceptually simple, computationally efficient, and easy to implement. In particular, motor torques and joint positions and velocities are the only inputs to the estimation algorithm