Arm-side evaluation of ILC applied to a six-degrees-of-freedom industrial robot ?

Experimental results from a first-order ILC algorithm applied to a large-size sixdegrees-of-freedom commercial industrial robot are presented. The ILC algorithm is based on measurements of the motor angles, but in addition to the conventional evaluation of the ILC algorithm based on the motor-side error, the tool-path error on the arm side is evaluated using a laser-measurement system. Experiments have been carried out in three operating points using movements that represent typical paths in a laser-cutting application and different choices of algorithm design parameters have been studied. The motor-angle error is reduced substantially in all experiments and the tool-path error is reduced in most of the cases. In one operating point, however, the error does not decrease as much and an oscillatory tool behaviour is observed. Changed filter variables can give worse error reduction in all operating points. To achieve even better performance, especially in difficult operating points, it is concluded that an arm-side measurement, from for example an accelerometer, needs to be included in the learning.