Kinematic calibration of orthoglide-type mechanisms

The paper proposes a novel calibration approach for the Orthoglide-type mechanisms based on observations of the manipulator leg parallelism during motions between the prespecified test postures. It employs a low-cost measuring system composed of standard comparator indicators attached to the universal magnetic stands. They are sequentially used for measuring the deviation of the relevant leg location while the manipulator moves the TCP along the Cartesian axes. Using the measured differences, the developed algorithm estimates the joint offsets that are treated as the most essential parameters to be adjusted. The sensitivity of the measurement methods and the calibration accuracy are also studied. Experimental results are presented that demonstrate validity of the proposed calibration technique.