  The paper presents an approach for the identification of elasto-static
parameters of a robotic manipulator using the virtual experiments in a CAD
environment. It is based on the numerical processing of the data extracted from
the finite element analysis results, which are obtained for isolated
manipulator links. This approach allows to obtain the desired stiffness
matrices taking into account the complex shape of the links, couplings between
rotational/translational deflections and particularities of the joints
connecting adjacent links. These matrices are integral parts of the manipulator
lumped stiffness model that are widely used in robotics due to its high
computational efficiency. To improve the identification accuracy,
recommendations for optimal settings of the virtual experiments are given, as
well as relevant statistical processing techniques are proposed. Efficiency of
the developed approach is confirmed by a simulation study that shows that the
accuracy in evaluating the stiffness matrix elements is about 0.1%.
