Joint stiffness identification of six-revolute industrial serial robots

Although robots tend to be as competitive as CNC machines for some operations, they are not yet widely used for machining operations. This may be due to the lack of certain technical information that is required for satisfactory machining operation. For instance, it is very difficult to get information about the stiffness of industrial robots from robot manufacturers. As a consequence, this paper introduces a robust and fast procedure that can be used to identify the joint stiffness values of any six-revolute serial robot. This procedure aims to evaluate joint stiffness values considering both translational and rotational displacements of the robot end-effector for a given applied wrench (force and torque). In this paper, the links of the robot are assumed to be much stiffer than its actuated joints. The robustness of the identification method and the sensitivity of the results to measurement errors and the number of experimental tests are also analyzed. Finally, the actual Cartesian stiffness matrix of the robot is obtained from the joint stiffness values and can be used for motion planning and to optimize machining operations. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.