Methods of calibrating a position of a component using onboard crush and crash sensors. The method includes providing the robot with gripper and crush and crash sensors, providing a calibration tool coupled to the gripper, and providing a component including a recess and crush zone. The method includes moving the gripper in a first Controller direction to sense contact between the calibration tool and crush zone, and recording the contact position. Likewise, the gripper is moved to insert the tool into the recess, followed by moving the gripper in second directions and sensing contact between the tool and recess, and moving the gripper in third directions and sensing contact between the tool and recess. Contact positions are recorded and processed to determine a surface location in the first direction and physical center of the recess. Robot calibration apparatus for carrying out the method are disclosed, as are other aspects.

The invention relates to a method for identifying geometric deviations of a real motion guide from an ideal motion guide in a coordinate-measuring machine having a sensor for measuring a workpiece, or in a machine tool having a tool for processing a workpiece, wherein the coordinate-measuring machine or the machine tool has a movable part which is guided along the motion guide and by the motion guide.

A method for calibration of work piece mounted in a predetermined manner to a work object and a robot system using the same. The work object has a first surface, a second surface and a third surface, and wherein the work object frame of reference is defined by a first coordinate line, a second coordinate line, and a third coordinate line at intersections of the first surface, the second surface and the third surface converging on a point. The method includes: touching a first number of locations on the first surface of the work object positioned by the robot touch probe to measure their actual locations on the first surface in the robot frame of reference, and storing the measured first coordinates for the measured locations; touching a second number of locations on the second surface of the work object positioned by the robot touch probe to measure their actual locations on the second surface in the robot frame of reference, and storing the measured second coordinates for the measured locations; touching a third number of locations on the third surface of the work object positioned by the robot touch probe to measure their actual locations on the third surface in the robot frame of reference, and storing the measured third coordinates for the measured locations; calculating orientation and origin of the work object frame of reference from the robot frame of reference based on the measured first, second and third coordinates for the measured locations, where the work object is positioned in the robot cell. The method provides all the necessary data to determine orientation and origin of the actual work object frame of reference relative to the robot frame of reference. The method also enables the robot to perform machine operations accurately at locations on a work object.

A grinding apparatus including a robot, a grinding tool attached to the robot, a force sensor configured to detect a force exerted on the grinding tool, and a controller connected with the force sensor and configured to control the robot. The controller includes a variation acquiring section configured to acquire the present position of the robot by pressing the grinding tool against a reference surface in such a manner that a pressing force detected by the force sensor is constant, and to acquire a difference between the acquired present position and a reference position of the robot stored in advance, the difference being acquired as a variation of the grinding tool.

A calibration system includes a docking stand fixed within a three-dimensional coordinate system and an end effector supported by the docking stand. The end effector includes a frame received by the docking stand and an adjustable member movable along the frame. The adjustable member includes a clamp and a reference surface. The calibration system includes a computational system including at least one processor and at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium including instructions. The calibration system includes a measurement instrument in electronic communication with the computational system. The measurement instrument is movable and is arranged to interact with the reference surface and transmit a signal to the processor. The processor is programmed to analyze a location of the measurement instrument within the three-dimensional coordinate system and the interaction between the measurement instrument and the reference surface to determine a location of the adjustable member within the three-dimensional coordinate system.

A geometric error identification method of multi-axis machine tool includes a measuring step of indexing a position of a target ball mounted on one of a main spindle and a table into a plurality of angles around an rotation axis, and measuring the position of the target ball at respective indexed positions by using a touch probe mounted on the other one of the main spindle and the table, a geometric error calculation step of calculating a geometric error from the measured position of the target ball, an ellipse-expression calculation step of calculating an ellipse approximate expression by an arc trajectory measured by operating the rotation axis, and an error correcting step of calculating and correcting a scaling error of translation axes from the calculated ellipse approximate expression.

A method for calibrating a touchscreen panel and the system, the industrial robot and the touchscreen panel using the same. The method including the steps of: (a) defining at least one area of the touchscreen with predetermined accuracy for position measuring; (b) recording a plurality of kinematic parameters of the industrial robot on a plurality of first touch points on the at least one area of the touchscreen; (c) recording a plurality of first position values on the plurality of first touch points on the at least one area of the touchscreen; (d) determining a first calibration data for the kinematic model of the industrial robot using the kinematic parameters and using the first position values; (e) computationally correcting errors of the kinematic model of the industrial robot using the first calibration data; (f) recording a plurality of second position values on a plurality of second touch points on the at least one area with at least a portion of its border extending outwards; (g) determining a second calibration data for the touchscreen using the kinematic parameters and using the second position values; (h) computationally correcting errors of position measurement of the touchscreen using the second calibration data; and iteratively repeating the steps (b) through (h) for different postures of the industrial robot until the iteration step no longer results in significant improvement of the error correction of the kinematic model of the industrial robot.

A teaching apparatus for robot includes a force sensor disposed between an arm of a robot and an end effector, and a guide part attached to the end effector. An object includes a recessed part. The recessed part has a reference surface, with which target surface of the end part of the guide part are brought into surface-contact so as to determine a position and a posture of the robot. A robot control device performs a control for bringing the target surface of the guide part into surface-contact with the reference surface of the recessed part so as to determine a teaching position of the robot, based on the direction of a force applied to the end effector.

A tool calibration apparatus for a robot manipulator having a tool is disclosed. The tool calibration apparatus comprises a base, an X-axis measurement device, a Y-axis measurement device and a Z-axis measurement device. Each of the X-axis measurement device, the Y-axis measurement device and the Z-axis measurement device comprises a measuring plate and a sensor. The measuring plates of the X-axis measurement device, the Y-axis measurement device and the Z-axis measurement device move in a direction along the X-axis, Y-axis, and Z-axis, respectively. The sensors of the X-axis measurement device, the Y-axis measurement device and the Z-axis measurement device measure a displacement of the corresponding measuring plate. According to the displacements, information of a tool center point of the tool is acquired so as to calibrate the tool center point.

Various technologies described herein pertain to automatic in-situ calibration and registration of a depth sensor and a robotic arm, where the depth sensor and the robotic arm operate in a workspace. The robotic arm can include an end effector. A non-parametric technique for registration between the depth sensor and the robotic arm can be implemented. The registration technique can utilize a sparse sampling of the workspace (e.g., collected during calibration or recalibration). A point cloud can be formed over calibration points and interpolation can be performed within the point cloud to map coordinates in a sensor coordinate frame to coordinates in an arm coordinate frame. Such technique can automatically incorporate intrinsic sensor parameters into transformations between the depth sensor and the robotic arm. Accordingly, an explicit model of intrinsics or biases of the depth sensor need not be utilized.