In this chapter, a survey of existing methods in the academia and commercially available solutions to improve robot work cell accuracy is presented. Subsequently, two methods are presented in further details to illustrate different approaches that can be adopted to improve work cell accuracy. The first method uses a model-based calibration approach where work cell accuracy is improved through parametric identification of the robot kinematic model. The calibration process uses measurement pairs of the end-effector pose and corresponding joint angles to identify an improved set of model parameters. An online preprocessing method for implementing the calibration results is later introduced to overcome the closed control architecture of industrial robotic controllers. An experiment is conducted using an ABB industrial robot (IRB 4400) and a Leica laser measurement system to verify the effectiveness of this calibration procedure. The second method adopts a non-model-based approach where sensors are used to establish the relative pose of the tool and work object, thus indirectly compensating for all errors. Finally, the two different approaches are integrated in a single robot accuracy enhancement framework. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the advantages of the framework.

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