Abstract: In order to apply the three-dimensional surface scanning robot in manufacturing quality control, the robot positioning accuracy is the key element. A binary artificial bee colony (BABC) algorithm and coordinate measurement machine (CMM) approach are adopted to obtain optimal or near optimal measurement configurations for robot calibration. A measurement transition part which consists of three standard balls is designed and manufactured. The transition part is mounted to the end of the robot and then the accurate centroids of balls under many different robot measurement configurations are obtained via CMM, while the six joint angle values of the robot are acquired via serial port. The object function for optimal measurement configurations is established by using identification Jacobian matrix. After the determination of initial optimization parameters, the optimal selection of measurement configurations are obtained by proposed constrained BABC method. The real D-H parameters are determined. The obtained real parameters are employed in the modified kinematic model and experimental results demonstrate that its calibration performance is better than that of the random selection measurement configurations.

Key words: Artificial bee colony algorithm, Coordinate measurement machine, Optimal measurement configuration, Robot