Motion calibration/identification of a flexible manipulator

Much work has been done in the area of stationary calibration of manipulators. Recently, for situations where the mechanism’s behavior while in motion plays a larger role in the positioning accuracy of the end-effector, interest has shifted towards motion calibration techniques. Two kinds of motion calibration for a two-link manipulator are presented and evaluated in this paper. Dynamic calibration addresses the manipulator’s response as it traces a certain trajectory and vibrational calibration deals with the mechanism’s flexible response. Several researchers have investigated various methods of dynamic calibration. While modal models have been studied for flexible manipulators, the area of vibrational calibration is not as well developed. The objective of this work is to evaluate and compare these two calibration approaches involving motion of the manipulator and to determine the contribution of each approach towards a more complete calibration of a manipulator.