The main objective of this thesis is the accuracy improvement of parallel robots. Accuracy can be improved either by precise manufacturing and assembly or by calibration of each individual robot using a kinematic model which takes geometric deviations into account. The latter has the advantage of leading to low cost solutions but requires sophisticated modeling of the robot's structure which is usually considerably more complex than the derivation of its nominal model. To substantiate the theoretical tools proposed in this thesis two examples of parallel structures are chosen. One of them is the Delta robot with three translational degrees of freedom whereas the second example is a novel structure called Argos having three rotational degrees of freedom. For experimental verification a mock-up was built for each of the two structures. Four calibration steps, modeling, measurement, identification, and implementation are investigated. Investigations were restricted to static errors due to geometric deviations assuming rigid bodies. First a formula is proposed which allows to calculate the number of independent kinematic parameters required for a complete model of a parallel structure. Then a systematic parameterization is introduced and applied to derive four calibration models, two for each example. Two measurement devices are described which were built to determine the position and orientation (pose) of the end-effectors of the two robots. For the Delta robot two additional set-ups using no external (additional) measurement device are proposed. For parameter identification different methods were tested by simulation. Calibration based on the implicit model is proposed as a standard method to calibrate parallel robots. Another calibration method is introduced, referred to as semiparametric calibration, which leads to low computational effort. Fast solutions of the direct and inverse problems had to be found. For the first time al1 the solutions of the direct problem for the Delta robot were found by means of an algorithm introduced by Husty. In addition a fast numeric algorithm for the Delta's direct problem is proposed. The main contribution of this thesis is the experimental verification of calibration methods to improve the accuracy of parallel robots. Using these calibration methods for the two robots, ARGOS and DELTA, between a three- to a twelve-fold improvement of accuracy was achieved and experimentally verified.
EPFL1996
