Measurement of the Robot Motor Capability of a Robot Motor System: A Fitts's-Law-Inspired Approach

Robot motor capability is a crucial factor for a robot, because it affects how accurately and rapidly a robot can perform a motion to accomplish a task constrained by spatial and temporal conditions. In this paper, we propose and derive a pseudo-index of motor performance (pI(p)) to characterize robot motor capability with robot kinematics, dynamics and control taken into consideration. The proposed pI(p) provides a quantitative measure for a robot with revolute joints, which is inspired from an index of performance in Fitts's law of human skills. Computer simulations and experiments on a PUMA 560 industrial robot were conducted to validate the proposed pI(p) for performing a motion accurately and rapidly.