A flexible robotic work cell for the assembly of airframe components is described. The key cell devices are two robots, a flexible fixture, a metrology system, an automatic fastening machine, and several end effectors. Software modules are found behind all cell devices. Other software components are found in the cell controller, planning utilities, and offline programming. The emphasis is on functional aspects of the cell and the associated software.>

Algorithms for the identification of the following robot dynamics parameters are presented: link center of mass positions, link inertia matrices, joint friction coefficients, load mass, load center of mass position and load inertia matrix. Required measurements are the joint forces/torques and the resulting joint motion (joint position, velocity and acceleration). Software implementations are used to show how the algorithms perform on simulated measurement data.

An algorithm for the estimation of parameters in robots with rotary joints is presented. The parameters are the center of mass and inertia matrix for each link, and Coulomb friction and viscous damping in each joint. We also present an algorithm for identification of the center of mass and inertia matrix for the load. Data required are joint angles and torques, and the first and second derivatives of the joint angles. The algorithm for the load also requires force sensing such that net force and torque on the load can be computed.