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tional costs,
2. Improvement of the numerical efficiency of the
kinematic identification algorithm and,
3. Improvement of the kinematic identification re-
sults.
Based on the Divide and Conquer strategy, a new
protocol for the kinematic identification of parallel
symmetrical mechanisms is proposed (section 4, Fig-
ure 1). For the selection of optimal identification pos-
tures the protocol adopts the active robot calibration
algorithm of (Sun and Hollerbach, 2008). The main
advantage of the active robot calibration algorithm is
the reduction of the complexity of computing an ob-
servability index for the kinematic identification, al-
lowing to afford more candidate poses in the optimal
pose selection search. The kinematic identification
protocol summarizes the advantages of the Divide and
Conquer identification strategy and the advantages of
the active robot calibration algorithm.
The kinematic identification protocol is demon-
strated with the simulated identification of a planar
5R symmetrical mechanism (section 5). The perfor-
mance of our identification protocol is compared with
a traditional identification method obtaining an im-
provement of the identification results (Figs. 3, 4).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors wish to acknowledge the financial sup-
port for this research by the Colombian Administra-
tive Department of Sciences, Technology and Innova-
tion (COLCIENCIAS), grant 1216-479-22001.
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