Online backlash identification and estimation of remaining useful life in the joints of high speed industrial robots

In industrial robots, a performance issue is backlash, which is the clearance between mating gears of its joints. Over time, backlash grows through wear and tear, causing inaccuracies in robot positioning. Current methods in backlash detection are performed in low-speed and laboratory settings, or require offline diagnostics. These methods are impractical in actual manufacturing environments, where industrial robots operate continuously at high speeds. Other methods require additional sensors unavailable in typical industrial robots. This thesis presents an online method to quantify backlash and predict the remaining useful life (RUL) in an industrial robot performing cyclic production tasks, using only standard available sensors.