A reflected laser line approach for industrial robot calibration

This paper proposes a novel calibration approach for industrial robots. Unlike previous methods, the proposed approach introduces a completely new technique for automatically calibrating robots. The proposed system consists of an industrial robot manipulator, a laser fixture attached to the robot tool center point (TCP), a PC-based interface, and a new portable position sensitive device. This portable device comprised of two fixed position sensitive detectors (PSD´s) tilted in an angle to reflect the laser line from one PSD to another. The new calibration approach is not only able to compute the joint offset parameters of the robot, but is also capable of simultaneously calibrating the robot´s workpiece relationship. It was also designed to be faster yet simpler than other methods. Throughout this paper we present, analyze and compare both simulations and experimental results between the new proposed approach and our existing methods.