Robotics Applications for the Testing of Inertial Sensors

摘要

This thesis investigates the technical and economic feasibility of using robots as testbeds for inertial sensors in lieu of the current generation of unique, expensive, and relatively inflexible gyro and accelerometer test facilities. A PUMA 560 robot arm is used as the experimental testbed. The design and demonstration of three tests are described which illustrate the alignment, calibration, and resulting performance of the robot as a test device. Actual high precision inertial accelerometers and gyros were used to establish a performance baseline and to evaluate the robot's test capabilities. The robot was programmed to act as a precision test servomechanism which was calibrated and aligned automatically using the high quality sensors. The robot was effective in providing quick-look results of error coefficient parameters for bias, scale factor, and elastic (g-squared) effects, but as expected could not provide inherently the precision required for very high quality sensor testing.