A methodology for joint stiffness identification of serial robots

This paper presents a new methodology for joint stiffness identification of serial robots. This methodology aims at evaluating all joint stiffness values responsible for both translational and rotational displacements of the robot end-effector subject to an external wrench (force and torque). The links of the robot are supposed to be quite stiffer than the joints and not known as it is usually the case with industrial serial robots. The robustness of the identification method and the sensitivity of the results to measurement errors and number of experimental tests are also analyzed. The Kuka KR240-2 robot is used as an illustrative example through the paper.