An identification method for estimating the inertia parameters of a manipulator

This article presents an off‐line identification method to estimate the minimal knowledge of the inertia parameters for determining the dynamic model of a manipulator. A new approach is proposed to find a set of the minimal knowledge of the inertia parameters. This set is recursively estimated by moving one joint at a time. The off‐line identification procedure also provides a sufficient condition for a persistently exciting trajectory. A simulation example of Stanford arm illustrates the validity and simplicity of the identification procedure.