A novel hand-eye calibration method for industrial robot and line laser vision sensor

Purpose The purpose of this study is solving the hand–eye calibration issue for line structured light vision sensor. Only after hand–eye calibration the sensor measurement data can be applied to robot system. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the hand–eye calibration methods are studied, respectively, for eye-in-hand and eye-to-hand. Firstly, the coordinates of the target point in robot system are obtained by tool centre point (TCP), then the robot is controlled to make the sensor measure the target point in multiple poses and the measurement data and pose data are obtained; finally, the sum of squared calibration errors is minimized by the least square method. Furthermore, the missing vector in the process of solving the transformation matrix is obtained by vector operation, and the complete matrix is obtained. Findings On this basis, the sensor measurement data can be easily and accurately converted to the robot coordinate system by matrix operation. Originality/value This method has no special requirement for robot pose control, and its calibration process is fast and efficient, with high precision and has practical popularized value.