Simultaneous calibration of a robot and a hand-mounted camera

A popular configuration widely used in a variety of robotic applications is to mount a camera on the robot manipulator hand. Before performing a measurement task using such a system, both the camera and the robot need to be calibrated. In this paper, a procedure is developed for simultaneous calibration of a robot and a monocular camera. Unlike conventional approaches based on first calibrating the camera and then calibrating the robot, the algorithm solves for the kinematic parameters of the robot and camera in one stage, thus eliminating error propagation and improving noise sensitivity. Only two parameters are added to a robot calibration model to represent camera geometry. With this addition, different levels of calibration can be done under a unified framework. An error model relating-image measurement residuals to kinematic parameter deviations is derived. Simulation and experimental studies have been conducted to assess the effectiveness of the proposed procedure