Calibration of a hand/eye matrix and a connection matrix using relative pose measurements

The problem investigated in this paper is an extension of the robotic hand/eye calibration problem. The system consists of a robot, a gimbal, and a three-dimensional (3D) sensor. It is assumed that the sensor, the gimbal, and the robot are calibrated in advance; therefore, their inaccuracy is negligible. The task is to determine the hand/eye matrix that relates the sensor coordinate frame to the first gimbal coordinate frame and the connection matrix that relates the last gimbal coordinate frame to the robot tool frame. The paper focuses on a special case of this problem. The robot is an x-y-z type and the gimbal has two rotary joints. Linear and iterative methods are presented, along with the discussion on issues such as solution uniqueness and parameter observability. Simulation and experimental results are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the method.