Calibration of mobile manipulators using 2D positional features

Robotic manipulators are increasingly being attached to Automatic Ground Vehicles (AGVs) to aid in the efficiency of assembly for manufacturing systems. However, calibrating these mobile manipulators is difficult as the offset between the robotic manipulator and the AGV is often unknown. This paper provides a novel, simple, and low-cost method for calibrating and measuring the performance of mobile manipulators by using data collected from a laser retroreflector that digitally detects the horizontal two-dimensional (2D) position of reflectors on an artifact as well as a navigation system that provides the heading angle and 2D position of the AGV. The method is mathematically presented by providing a closed form solution to the positional component of the 2D robot-world/hand-eye calibration problem AX=YB. The method is then applied to simulated data as well as data collected in a laboratory setting and compared to other methods.