Design and Testing of Wireless Motion Gauges for Two Collaborative Robot Arms

Most existing robot performance evaluation methods focus on single robotic arms performing independent motion tasks. In this paper, a motion gauge is proposed to evaluate the symmetrical coordinated-motion performance between two robotic arms. For this evaluation, the proposed device monitors the relative distance between the two robotic arms in real-time, which is used to evaluate the coordinated-motion errors with respect to accuracy, and repeatability between the two arms. The proposed metrology device is composed of two linear displacement sensors sliding on a linear rail, two ball-and-socket magnetic couplers for mounting to robotic arms, and a wireless communication module for data transmission. For validation, the proposed system monitored the two robotic arms programmed to simulate symmetrical coordinated motions.