Comments on 'A linear solution to the kinematic parameter identification of robot manipulator' and some modifications

The paper by Zhuang and Roth (ibid. vol.9, p.174-85 (1993)) presents a linear solution to kinematic parameter identification of robot manipulators. With their method, the orientation parameters for all revolute joints have to be solved first before solving for the translation parameters for all revolute joints and the orientation parameters for all prismatic joints simultaneously. Our major modification here is to decompose the kinematic parameters estimation problem into many subproblems of a single joint axis such that the complexity is reduced and easier implementation is derived. In addition, this gives a unified solution for any serial manipulator with an arbitrary combination of prismatic and revolute joints. >