A Practical Calibration Method for Spray Painting Robot in Factory

Abstract

Abstract. Calibration techniques played an essential role of improving the pose accuracy of the industrial robot before delivery. Due to the intense competition among the industrial robot market, numerous complicated calibration approaches, which were classified into 3 levels, had been successfully developed. Yet, in practical, level-1 and level-2 calibration, other than higher level, were often used in factory for the sake of cost-effective matter. And most of the researches and applications were focused on enhancing the position accuracy while the orientation accuracy was neglected. Considering the requirement of painting process and efficiency of calibration, we proposed a practical level-2 calibration method for a spray painting robot which was designed by Industrial Robot Research Center Co. Ltd. The measuring system consisted of API laser tracker and an orientation testing End-Effector. After identification and compensation process, we found this method was more effective compares to Zero-Offset method and Direct Calibration method with the relatively competitive consumption time.