  In this paper, we present an accelerometer-based kinematic calibration
algorithm to accurately estimate the pose of multiple sensor units distributed
along a robot body. Our approach is self-contained, can be used on any robot
provided with a Denavit-Hartenberg kinematic model, and on any skin equipped
with Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs). To validate the proposed method, we
first conduct extensive experimentation in simulation and demonstrate a sub-cm
positional error from ground truth data --an improvement of six times with
respect to prior work; subsequently, we then perform a real-world evaluation on
a seven degrees-of-freedom collaborative platform. For this purpose, we
additionally introduce a novel design for a stand-alone artificial skin
equipped with an IMU for use with the proposed algorithm and a proximity sensor
for sensing distance to nearby objects. In conclusion, in this work, we
demonstrate seamless integration between a novel hardware design, an accurate
calibration method, and preliminary work on applications: the high positional
accuracy effectively enables to locate distributed proximity data and allows
for a distributed avoidance controller to safely avoid obstacles and people
without the need of additional sensing.
