Modelling and identification of industrial robots including drive and joint flexibilities

The applicability of industrial robots is restricted by their tip accuracy, in particular for applications in which a tool needs to track a trajectory at high speed. Flexibility in the drives and joints of these manipulators is an important cause for their limited accuracy. The flexibilities will cause vibration of the robot tip along the desired trajectory and deflection due to gravity. The goal of this thesis is to develop modelling and identification techniques for industrial robots that include the effects of joint and drive flexibilities, aiming at the prediction of the tip motion. The developed modelling and identification techniques are applied on a St¨aubli RX90B industrial robot.