Unified Parameterization and Calibration of Serial, Parallel, and Hybrid Manipulators

Published

November 17, 2021

Author(s)

Josh Gordon, Benjamin Moser, Ben Moser, Andrew Petruska

Abstract

In this work, we present methods allowing parallel, hybrid, and serial manipulators to be analyzed, calibrated, and controlled with the same analytical tools. We introduce a general approach to describe any robotic manipulator using established serial-link representations. We use this framework to generate analytical kinematic and calibration Jacobians for general manipulator constructions using null space constraints and extend the methods to hybrid manipulator types with complex geometry. We leverage the analytical Jacobians to develop detailed expressions for post-calibration pose uncertainties that are applied to describe the relationship between data set size and post-calibration uncertainty. We demonstrate the calibration of a hybrid manipulator assembled from high precision calibrated industrial components resulting in 91.1 um RMS position error and 71.2 urad RMS rotation error, representing a 46.7% reduction compared to the baseline calibration of assembly offsets.

Citation

International Journal of Robotics Research

Volume

10

Issue

124

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics10040124

Local Download

Keywords

kinematics, robotics, metrology, optimization, laser tracker

Citation

Gordon, J. , Moser, B. , Moser, B. and Petruska, A. (2021), Unified Parameterization and Calibration of Serial, Parallel, and Hybrid Manipulators, International Journal of Robotics Research, [online], https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics10040124, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=932032 (Accessed October 27, 2025)