A method for characterising the environment of a robot, the robot having a flexible arm having a plurality of joints, a datum carried by the arm, a plurality of drivers arranged to drive the joints to move and a plurality of position sensors for sensing the position of each of the joints, the method comprising: contacting the datum carried by the arm with a first datum on a second robot in the environment of the first robot, wherein the second robot has a flexible arm having a plurality of joints, and a plurality of drivers arranged to drive those joints to move; calculating in dependence on the outputs of the position sensors a distance between a reference location defined in a frame of reference local to the robot and the first datum; and controlling the drivers to reconfigure the first arm in dependence on at least the calculated distance.

A method for characterizing the environment of a robot, the robot having a flexible arm having a plurality of joints, a datum carried by the arm, a plurality of drivers arranged to drive the joints to move and a plurality of position sensors for sensing the position of each of the joints, the method comprising: contacting the datum carried by the arm with a first datum on a second robot in the environment of the first robot, wherein the second robot has a flexible arm having a plurality of joints, and a plurality of drivers arranged to drive those joints to move; calculating in dependence on the outputs of the position sensors a distance between a reference location defined in a frame of reference local to the robot and the first datum; and controlling the drivers to reconfigure the first arm in dependence on at least the calculated distance.

A robot zero-point calibration device includes an axial position recording unit configured to record positional data of each axis of a robot in each of a plurality of postures when a first positioning point and a second positioning point are made to coincide with each other, the first positioning point being disposed at a predetermined coordinate on a base coordinate system of the robot, and the second positioning point being disposed at a predetermined coordinate on a flange coordinate system of the robot. The device also includes a positional offset calculating unit configured to calculate an offset amount of a zero point of each axis of the robot from a true zero point of the axis based on a plurality of sets of the positional data stored in the axial position recording unit.

A smart drilling system that includes a controller, a drilling machine with an optical marker, and a tracker station at a fixed spot of a construction site. The drilling machine includes an optical marker. The tracker station acquires the location of the drilling machine and its drill through tracking the optical marker. The drilling machine is moved into positions of multiple different work regions. The tracker station sequentially acquires the location of the multiple different work regions and transmits the acquired location information to the controller, such that, by using the transmitted locations, the controller converts drilling machine coordinates into desired perforation coordinates and recognizes an orientation of the drilling machine. The controller also recognizes a perforable point at a current position of the drilling machine through the location information of the drilling machine.