Layered and Decoupled Calibration: A High-Precision Kinematic Identification for a 5-DOF Serial-Parallel Manipulator with Remote Drive

Serial-parallel hybrid manipulators featuring remote actuation via parallelogram mechanisms are highly valued for their low inertia and high stiffness. However, the complex nonlinear errors introduced by their multi-stage transmission chains pose significant challenges for high-precision calibration. To address this, this paper proposes a hierarchical and decoupled calibration framework specifically tailored for such parallelogram-driven hybrid manipulators. The method first independently calibrates the pose error of the 3-DOF serial main arm using a composite error model that integrates transmission chain constraints. Subsequently, the 2-DOF parallel wrist is accurately calibrated employing a joint-space error identification strategy based on inverse kinematics, thereby circumventing the intractability of solving the parallel mechanism’s forward kinematics. Experimental validation was performed on a self-developed 5-DOF robot prototype using an optical tracker and an attitude sensor. Results from the validation dataset demonstrate that the proposed method reduces the robot’s average positioning error from 2.199 mm to 0.658 mm (a 70.1% improvement) and the average attitude error from 0.8976 deg to 0.1767 deg (an 80.3% improvement). Furthermore, comparative experiments against the standard MDH model and polynomial fitting models confirm that the proposed composite error model and multi-stage transmission error model are essential for achieving high accuracy. This research provides crucial theoretical insights and practical solutions for the high-precision application of complex remote-driven hybrid manipulators.