Pose Measurement and TCF Calibration for Automatic Cabin Docking

Cabin docking is a fundamental process in aircraft and rocket manufacturing, where cabins are mounted on robots to complete the docking process. Tool Control Frame (TCF) calibration, which involves calibrating the relative pose matrix between the docking cabin and the robot end, is a critical step in ensuring the accuracy of cabin docking. In this paper, we propose automatic pose measurement and TCF calibration methods for cabin docking. First, cabin pose measurement is performed using a coded structured light sensor to capture point clouds. A two-stage model-based point cloud registration method is introduced to enhance robustness and accuracy. Second, robotic TCF calibration is carried out by solving the AX=XB equation. The proposed calibration method introduces an auxiliary frame and designs three pairs of robot poses to improve calibration accuracy. Finally, experiments verify that the proposed methods exhibit high accuracy in pose measurement and TCF calibration, successfully enabling automatic docking.