Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 March 2009
The accurate modelling of robot dynamics is essential for the design of model-based robot controllers. However, dynamic models have very complicated features which can be attributed to several reasons. For example, the continuously-varying arm configuration, uncertain effects of load handling on the dynamic stability of the arm, and the high degree of non-linearity and coupling exhibited between the different links. Hence, the accurate modelling of these effects will play an important role in the design of robust controllers. Towards this end, an efficient and fast method for the on-line tuning of robot dynamic parameters must be devised. This work proposes to solve this problem as follows. First, a simplified dynamic model of the robot is developed. The model allows for direct and straightforward extraction and regrouping of dynamic parameters. The resulting dynamic parameters are formulated as a regression equation which is linear in the dynamic parameters. Finally, the algorithm is executed using a Transputer development system to speed up the computation and meet real-time constraints. The efficiency of the approach is demonstrated by a case study.