A new approach to design optimal excitation trajectories for parameter estimation of robot dynamics

This paper presents a new method for designing optimized excitation trajectories for the estimation of robot manipulator model parameters. Current optimization methods require large number of parameters and solving nonlinear optimization problems. This work utilizes the Schroeder Phased Harmonic Sequence (SPHS) in the trajectory design process which has three advantages over previous methods: (i) a guaranteed optimal solution, (ii) a controllable frequency spectrum and a low peak factor signal, (iii) a reduced number of parameters to optimize. The method here proposed is experimentally tested on a small three Degree of Freedom robot. The results show that the model estimated using the new method is more accurate at predicting the dynamics of the robot when compared to a non-optimized excitation.