Sensitivity analysis for estimation of inertial parameters of multibody mechanical systems

As an important issue, we first address in this paper the problem of a regression matrix with non-homogeneous physical units in the parameter estimation of multibody systems. This matrix contains the most important information about the motion of the system. Attention must be paid to this before implementing any parameter estimation algorithm due to the unit inconsistency in matrix multiplication required in such algorithms. A procedure to treat this problem in a proper way will be proposed. An experiment on a six degrees of freedom (DOF) robotic device, whose reference link follows a desired trajectory, is performed. The data collected from the experiment are then used for sensitivity analysis of inertial parameters based on the unit-homogenized regression matrix of the system. In this way, we characterize the influence of each selected inertial parameter on the dynamics of the system using unit-consistent mathematical manipulations. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.