Enhanced computational technique for stiffness matrix identification of robotic manipulator components

The paper deals with stiffness matrix identification of complex-shape robotic links. It proposes an enhancement that simplifies the identification procedure by splitting the link into simple segments for which the identification procedure is trivial. Further, the segments’ stiffness matrices are aggregated into the desired link stiffness matrix. The proposed enhancement allows users to avoid ambiguity with reference points for link connections with multiple surfaces. The developed technique is applied to real-world problem dealing with tool stiffness matrix identifications from the CAD-based virtual experiments.