LAUSR

Abstract This study addresses the non-negligible flexibility problem of industrial robots and describes a rigid–flexible coupling error model for robot non-kinematic calibration. Simulation confirms that compliance errors are major sources of inaccuracies and affect robot accuracy with geometric errors. To reduce the impact of measurement noise and improve calibration performance, an enhanced approach is proposed for full pose measurement and identification optimisation. This approach is based on the self-adaption particle swarm optimisation (SAPSO) algorithm with a dual-index (i.e. observability index O1 and identification accuracy index Omin) and a modified Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm, which considers external constraints (i.e. structural interference and angular limitation). Simulation results illustrate that the 36 error parameters of the proposed error model can be identified with improved accuracy and stability using the proposed approach. Finally, experimental results obtained with a Staubli TX60L robot with a FARO laser tracker are introduced to demonstrate the practical effectiveness of our approach in robot accuracy improvement.