Detection of Absolute Position of Robot Joint Using Incremental Encoders

This paper proposes an efficient detection of absolute position of a robot joint using two incremental encoders. We considers a robot joint comprising a motor, a reducer, two encoders, and a motor drive. An incremental(first) encoder provides motor's rotor position or input position of reducer while another incremental(second) encoder does output position of the reducer. A table is made where the relationship between the first and the second encoder counts is recorded. The key point is placed where the table is constructed: when a pulse occurs in the second encoder, there exists a corresponding unique count value of the first encoder. The absolute position is detected using the table by searching the second encoder position corresponding to the first encoder count value when a pulse occurs in the second encoder. The proposed method needs a small rotation, as just one second encoder's pulse angle, for the initial absolute position detection.

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