An industrial robot is officially defined by ISO^[1] as an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose manipulator programmable in three or more axes. The field of robotics may be more practically defined as the study, design and use of robot systems for manufacturing (a top-level definition relying on the prior definition of robot). This article does not cite any references or sources. ... For other uses, see robot (disambiguation). ... Manufacturing (from Latin manu factura, making by hand) is the use of tools and labor to make things for use or sale. ...

Robots doing vehicle underbody assembly (KUKA).

Typical applications of robots include welding, painting, ironing, assembly, pick and place, packaging and palletizing, product inspection, and testing, all accomplished with high endurance, speed, and precision. Image File history File links Industrial Robots in the car production. ... Image File history File links Industrial Robots in the car production. ... KUKA industrial robots welding a car body in the white section of a production line. ... Welding is a fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. ... An iron Ironing or smoothing is the work of using a heated tool to remove wrinkles from washed clothes. ... A pick is a tool used for manual labour which consists of a hard spike attached perpendicular to a handle. ... Packaging is the enclosing of a physical object, typically a product that will be offered for sale. ... A wooden pallet A plastic pallet with nine legs, which can be lifted from all four sides A Pallet can also be a small, hard, or temporary bed (a term heavily used in the southern United States to describe a makeshift bed consisting of a blanket and a pillow on...

Robot types, features

The most commonly used robot configurations are articulated robots (the first and most common), SCARA robots and gantry robots (aka Cartesian Coordinate robots, or x-y-z robots). In the context of general robotics, most types of robots would fall into the category of robot arms (inherent in the use of the word manipulator in the above-mentioned ISO standard). Robots exhibit varying degrees of autonomy: Articulated robots can range from simple 2 jointed structures to systems with 10 or more interacting joints. ... Scara robot (Adept Cobra 600) The Selective Compliant Articulated/Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) is usually a 4-axis industrial robot. ... A cartesian coordinate robot is an industrial robot whose three principal axes of control are linear (i. ... View of the Canadarm during a Space Shuttle mission The Remote Manipulator System (RMS) on the Space Shuttle, also known as the Canadarm, is an electromechanical arm that maneuvers a payload from the payload bay of the space shuttle orbiter to its deployment position and then releases it. ... Autonomous robots are robots which can perform desired tasks in unstructured environments without continuous human guidance. ...

• Some robots are programmed to faithfully carry out specific actions over and over again (repetitive actions) without variation and with a high degree of accuracy. These actions are determined by programmed routines that specify the direction, acceleration, velocity, deceleration, and distance of a series of coordinated motions.
• Other robots are much more flexible as to the orientation of the object on which they are operating or even the task that has to be performed on the object itself, which the robot may even need to identify. For example, for more precise guidance, robots often contain machine vision sub-systems acting as their "eyes", linked to powerful computers or controllers. Artificial intelligence, or what passes for it, is becoming an increasingly important factor in the modern industrial robot.

Routine may be a reference to one of the following: Patterns of living among people are studied in Ethnomethodology. ... Machine vision (MV) is the application of computer vision to industry and manufacturing. ... Garry Kasparov playing against Deep Blue, the first machine to win a chess game against a reigning world champion. ...

History of Industrial Robotics

George C. Devol (1982)

George Devol applied for the first robotics patents in 1954 (granted in 1961). The first company to produce a robot was Unimation, founded by George Devol and Joseph F. Engelberger in 1956, and was based on Devol's original patents. Unimation robots were also called programmable transfer machines since their main use at first was to transfer objects from one point to another, less than a dozen feet or so apart. They used hydraulic actuators and were programmed in joint coordinates, i.e. the angles of the various joints were stored during a teaching phase and replayed in operation. They were accurate to within 1/10,000 of an inch. Unimation later licensed their technology to Kawasaki Heavy Insudtries and Guest-Nettlefolds, manufacturing Unimates in Japan and England respectively. For some time Unimation's only competitor was Cincinnati Milacron Inc. of Ohio. This changed radically in the late 1970s when several big Japanese conglomerates began producing similar industrial robots. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... George Charles Devol Jr. ... Joseph F. Engelberger is an engineer and entrepreneur who is often credited with being the Father of Robotics. Along with George Devol, Engelberger developed the first industrial robot in the United States, the Unimate. ... George Charles Devol Jr. ... Joseph F. Engelberger is an engineer and entrepreneur who is often credited with being the Father of Robotics. Along with George Devol, Engelberger developed the first industrial robot in the United States, the Unimate. ... Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Hydraulics is a branch of science and engineering concerned with the use of liquids to perform mechanical tasks. ... A three-dimensional actuator modelled using elastica theory. ... A joint is the location at which two or more bones make contact. ... See Cartesian coordinate system or Coordinates (elementary mathematics) for a more elementary introduction to this topic. ... Official language(s) None Capital Columbus Largest city Columbus Largest metro area Cleveland Area  Ranked 34th  - Total 44,825 sq mi (116,096 km²)  - Width 220 miles (355 km)  - Length 220 miles (355 km)  - % water 8. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, also called The Seventies. ...

In 1969 Victor Scheinman at Stanford University invented the Stanford arm, an all-electric, 6-axis articulated robot designed to permit an arm solution. This allowed it to accurately follow arbitrary paths in space and widened the potential use of the robot to more sophisticated applications such as assembly and arc welding. Scheinman then designed a second arm for the MIT AI Lab, called the "MIT arm." Scheinman, after receiveing a fellowship from Unimation to develop his designs, sold those designs to Unimation who further developed them with support from General Motors and later marketed it as the Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly (PUMA). Also: 1969 (Stargate SG-1) episode. ... Victor Scheinman is a pioneer in the field of robotics. ... “Stanford” redirects here. ... Articulated robots can range from simple 2 jointed structures to systems with 10 or more interacting joints. ... A typical industrial robot is built with fixed length segments that are connected either at joints whose angles can be controlled, or along linear slides whose length can be controlled. ... Welding is a fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. ... Mapúa Institute of Technology (MIT, MapúaTech or simply Mapúa) is a private, non-sectarian, Filipino tertiary institute located in Intramuros, Manila. ... // This disambiguation page covers alternative uses of the terms Ai, AI, and A.I. Ai (as a word, proper noun and set of initials) can refer to many things. ... General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM), also known as GM, is an American automobile maker with worldwide operations and brands including Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab and Vauxhall. ... The PUMA (Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly, or Programmable Universal Manipulation Arm) was a robot-arm system developed by Vic Schienman at MIT for General Motors. ...

In 1973 KUKA Robotics built its first robot, known as FAMULUS, this is the first articulated robot to have six electromechanically driven axes. For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... KUKA industrial robots welding a car body in the white section of a production line. ... An industrial robot is officially defined by ISO[1] as an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose manipulator programmable in three or more axes. ...

Interest in robotics swelled in the late 1970s and many companies entered the field, including large firms like General Electric, and General Motors (which formed joint venture FANUC Robotics with FANUC LTD of Japan). US start-ups included Automatix and Adept Technology, Inc. At the height of the robot boom in 1984, Unimation was acquired by Westinghouse Electric Corporation for 107 million US dollars. Westinghouse sold Unimation to Stäubli Faverges SCA of France in 1988. Stäubli was still making articulated robots for general industrial and clean room applications as of 2004 and even bought the robotic division of Bosch in late 2004. The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, also called The Seventies. ... “GE” redirects here. ... A joint venture (often abbreviated JV) is an entity formed between two or more parties to undertake economic activity together. ... FANUC Robotics America, Inc. ... Start-Up (also know as Start-Up 2000) is a PC video game in which players must try to build a successful business start-up from venture capitalists to IPOs. ... Automatix Inc. ... This article is about the year. ... Westinghouse logo (designed by Paul Rand) The Westinghouse Electric Company, headquartered in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, is an organization founded by George Westinghouse in 1886. ... Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ... In manufacturing, a clean room is an enclosed area protected against dust that might interfere with the manufacturing process. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Logo of Robert Bosch GmbH Robert Bosch GmbH [1] is a German corporation which was started in 1886 by Robert Bosch in Stuttgart, Germany. ...

Eventually the myopic vision of American industry was superseded by the financial resources and strong domestic market enjoyed by the Japanese manufacturers. Only a few non-Japanese companies managed to survive in this market, including Adept Technology, Stäubli-Unimation, the Swedish-Swiss company ABB (ASEA Brown-Boveri), the Austrian manufacturer igm Robotersysteme AG and the German company KUKA Robotics. ABB, formerly Asea Brown Boveri, is a multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, operating mainly in the power and automation technology areas. ... KUKA industrial robots welding a car body in the white section of a production line. ...

Technical description

Defining parameters

• Number of axes – two axes are required to reach any point in a plane; three axes are required to reach any point in space. To fully control the orientation of the end of the arm (i.e. the wrist) three more axes (roll, pitch and yaw) are required. Some designs (e.g. the SCARA robot) trade limitations in motion possibilities for cost, speed, and accuracy.
• Degrees of freedom which is usually the same as the number of axes.
• Working envelope – the region of space a robot can reach.
• Kinematics – the actual arrangement of rigid members and joints in the robot, which determines the robot's possible motions. Classes of robot kinematics include articulated, cartesian, parallel and SCARA.
• Carrying capacity or payload – how much weight a robot can lift.
• Speed – how fast the robot can position the end of its arm. This may be defined in terms of the angular or linear speed of each axis or as a compound speed i.e. the speed of the end of the arm when all axes are moving.
• Acceleration - how quickly an axis can accelerate. Since this is a limiting factor a robot may not be able to reach it's specified maximum speed for movements over a short distance or a complex path requiring frequent changes of direction.
• Accuracy – how closely a robot can reach a commanded position. Accuracy can vary with speed and position within the working envelope and with payload (see compliance). It can be improved by Robot calibration.
• Repeatability - how well the robot will return to a programmed position. This is not the same as accuracy. It may be that when told to go to a certain X-Y-Z position that it gets only to within 1mm of that position. This would be it's accuracy which may be improved by calibration. But if that position is taught into controller memory and each time it is sent there it returns to within 0.1mm of the taught position then the repeatability will be within 0.1mm.
• Motion control – for some applications, such as simple pick-and-place assembly, the robot need merely return repeatably to a limited number of pre-taught positions. For more sophisticated applications, such as arc welding, motion must be continuously controlled to follow a path in space, with controlled orientation and velocity.
• Power source – some robots use electric motors, others use hydraulic actuators. The former are faster, the latter are stronger and advantageous in applications such as spray painting, where a spark could set off an explosion.
• Drive – some robots connect electric motors to the joints via gears; others connect the motor to the joint directly (direct drive). Using gears results in measurable 'backlash' which is free movement in an axis. In smaller robot arms with DC electric motors, because DC motors are high speed low torque motors they frequently require high ratios so that backlash is a problem. In such cases the harmonic drive is often used.
• Compliance - this is a measure of the amount in angle or distance that a robot axis will move when a force is applied to it. Because of compliance when a robot goes to a position carrying it's maximum payload it will be at a position slightly lower than when it is carrying no payload. Compliance can also be responsible for overshoot when carrying high payloads in which case acceleration would need to be reduced.

Scara robot (Adept Cobra 600) The Selective Compliant Articulated/Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) is usually a 4-axis industrial robot. ... In mechanical engineering, aeronautical engineering and robotics, degrees of freedom (DOF) describes flexibility of motion. ... In mechanical engineering, an envelope is a solid representing all positions which may be occupied by an object during its normal range of motion. ... Robot kinematics is the study of the motion of robots. ... A joint is the location at which two or more bones make contact. ... Articulated robots can range from simple 2 jointed structures to systems with 10 or more interacting joints. ... A cartesian coordinate robot is an industrial robot whose three principal axes of control are linear (i. ... Scara robot (Adept Cobra 600) The Selective Compliant Articulated/Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) is usually a 4-axis industrial robot. ... // Introduction KUKA industrial robot The positioning accuracy of industrial robots (IR) often is unsatisfactory for special applications. ... Manual Metal Arc welding, also known as stick or MMA welding is one of the most common forms of welding. ... Rotating magnetic field as a sum of magnetic vectors from 3 phase coils An electric motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. ... Hydraulics is a branch of science and engineering concerned with the use of liquids to perform mechanical tasks. ... Spray painting is painting using a device that sprays the paint. ... Spur gears found on a piece of farm equipment A gear is a wheel with teeth around its circumference, the purpose of the teeth being to mesh with similar teeth on another mechanical device -- possibly another gear wheel -- so that force can be transmitted between the two devices in a... A harmonic drive is an input/output gear reduction mechanism. ...

Robot programming and interfaces

Offline programming by ROBCAD

Main article: Robotics suite

The setup or programming of motions and sequences for an industrial robot is typically taught by linking the robot controller to a laptop, desktop computer or (internal or Internet) network. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1600 × 1200 pixel, file size: 1. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1600 × 1200 pixel, file size: 1. ... It has been suggested that Player Project and Microsoft Robotics Studio be merged into this article or section. ... Computer programming (often simply programming) is the craft of implementing one or more interrelated abstract algorithms using a particular programming language to produce a concrete computer program. ... An ultraportable IBM X31 with 12 screen on an IBM T43 Thin & Light laptop with a 14 screen QWERTY keyboard on 2007 Sony Vaio laptop A laptop computer, or simply laptop (also notebook computer or notebook), is a small mobile computer, which usually weighs 2-18 pounds (1-6 kilograms... This article is about the machine. ...

Software: The computer is installed with corresponding interface software. The use of a computer greatly simplifies the programming process. Specialized robot software is run either in the robot controller or in the computer or both depending on the system design. An interface defines the communication boundary between two entities, such as a piece of software, a hardware device, or a user. ... Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ... Programming robots is a non-trivial task. ...

Teach Pendant: Robots can also be taught via teach pendant, a handheld control and programming unit. The common feature of such units are the ability to manually send the robot to a desired position, or inch or jog to adjust a position. They also have a means to change the speed since a low speed is usually required for careful positioning. They also have a large emergency stop button. Typically once the robot has been programmed there is no more use for the teach pendant.

Lead-by-the-nose is a technique offered by most robot manufacturers but is of dubious value. While user holds the robot end effector another person enters a command which de-energizes the robot and it goes limp. The user then moves the robot by hand to the required positions or along a required path while the software logs these positions into memory. The program can later run the robot to these positions or along the taught path. This technique was popular for tasks such as paint spraying.

Others In addition, machine operators often use human machine interface devices, typically touch screen units, which serve as the operator control panel. The operator can switch from program to program, make adjustments within a program and also operate a host of peripheral devices that may be integrated within the same robotic system. These include end effectors, feeders that supply components to the robot, conveyors, emergency stop controls, machine vision systems, safety interlock systems, bar code printers and an almost infinite array of other industrial devices which are accessed and controlled via the operator control panel. The user interface is the part of a system exposed to users. ... Nintendo DS Touch screen A touch screen is an input/output device that allows the user to interact with the computer by touching the display screen. ... In computer hardware, a peripheral device is any device attached to a computer in order to expand its functionality. ... An example of an end effector In Robotics, an End effector is the device at the end of a robotic arm, designed to interact with the environment. ... Wikipedia encoded in Code 128_B A barcode (also bar code) is a machine-readable representation of information in a visual format on a surface. ...

The teach pendant or PC is usually disconnected after programming and the robot then runs on the program that has been installed in its controller. However a computer is often used to 'supervise' the robot and any peripherals. A controller is a person or device that exercises or attempts to exercise control or influence. ...

A robot and a collection of machines or peripherals is referred to as a cell. A typical cell might contain a parts feeder, a molding machine and a robot. The various machines are 'integrated' and controlled by a single computer or PLC. PLC & input/output arrangements A Programmable Logic Controller, PLC, or Programmable Controller is a digital computer used for automation of industrial processes, such as control of machinery on factory assembly lines. ...

End Effectors

The most essential robot peripheral is the end effector without which the robot can not do anything. Obvious examples are grippers which are devices that can grasp an object, usually electromechanical or pneumatic. Another common means of picking up an object is by vacuum. End effectors are frequently highly complex, made to match the handled product and often capable of picking up an array of the products at one time. An example of an end effector In Robotics, an End effector is the device at the end of a robotic arm, designed to interact with the environment. ... The initials GRASP can stand for: Give Ready Adults a Study Program ~ A distance-learning home-study GED program, conceived and developed in the early 1980s by a NY State BOCES. The Greedy randomized adaptive search procedure, a metaheuristic combinatorial optimization algorithm. ... Pneumatics, from the Greek πνευματικός (pneumatikos, coming from the wind) is the use of pressurized air in science and technology. ... Look up Vacuum in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Movement and singularities

Most articulated robots perform by storing a series of positions in memory, and moving to them at various times in their programming. For example, a robot which is moving items from one place to another might have a simple program like this (commonly called a 'pick and place' program):

Define points P1–P5:

1. Safely above workpiece (defined as P1)
2. 10 cm Above bin A (defined as P2)
3. At position to take part from bin A (defined as P3)
4. 10 cm Above bin B (defined as P4)
5. At position to take part from bin B. (defined as p5)

Define program: Look up Bin on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Bin can refer to: Any container for storing any kind of material or items, usually with a large opening at the top so that contents can easily be removed, often with a lid. ...

1. Move to P1
2. Move to P2
3. Move to P3
4. Close gripper
5. Move to P4
6. Move to P5
7. Open gripper
8. Move to P1 and finish

For a given robot the only parameters necessary to locate the end effector (gripper, welding torch, etc.) of the robot completely are the angles of each of the joints or displacements of the linear axes (or combinations of the two for robot formats such as SCARA). However there are many different ways to define the points. The most common and most convenient way of defining a point is to specify a Cartesian coordinate for it, i.e. the position of the 'end effector' in mm in the X, Y and Z directions. In addition the angles of the end effector in pitch, roll and yaw and the length of the tool must also be specified, depending on the types of joints a particular robot may have. For a jointed arm these coordinates must be converted to joint angles by the robot controller and such conversions are known as Cartesian Transformations which may need to be performed iteratively or recursively for a multiple axis robot. The mathematics of the relationship between joint angles and actual spatial coordinates is called kinematics. See robot control Cartesian means relating to the French mathematician and philosopher Descartes, who, among other things, worked to merge algebra and Euclidean geometry. ... An articulated robotic arm with a 7 DOF in a kinematic chain (including end effector at the end of the arm). ... Robot control is the theory of how to model and control robots. ...

Positioning by Cartesian coordinates may be done by entering the coordinates into the system or by using a teach pendant which moves the robot in X-Y-Z directions. It is much easier for a human operator to visualize motions up/down, left right etc. than to move each joint one at a time. When the desired position is reached it is then defined in some way peculiar to the robot software in use, e.g. P1 - P5 above. Programming robots is a non-trivial task. ...

Recent and future developments

Main article: Future of robotics

As of 2005, the robotic arm business is getting to a mature state, where they can provide enough speed, accuracy and ease of use for most of the applications. Vision guidance (aka machine vision) is bringing a lot of flexibility to robotic cells. So we have the arm and the eye, but the part that still has poor flexibility is the hand: the end effector attached to a robot is often a simple pneumatic, 2-position wrench. This doesn't allow the robotic cell to easily handle different parts, in different orientations. This article is about the future of robotics for civil use. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Machine vision (MV) is the application of computer vision to industry and manufacturing. ... Combination wrench, or combination spanner (left: box-end/ring, right: open-end) A wrench or spanner is a tool used to provide a mechanical advantage in applying torque to turn bolts, nuts or other hard-to-turn items. ...

Hand in hand with increasing off-line programmed applications, robot calibration is becoming more and more important in order to guarantee a good positioning accuracy. // Introduction KUKA industrial robot The positioning accuracy of industrial robots (IR) often is unsatisfactory for special applications. ...

Other developments include downsizing industrial arms for consumer applications (micro-robotic arms), manufacture of domestic robots and using industrial arms in combination with more intelligent automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to make the automation chain more flexible between pick-up and drop-off. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ...

Prices of robots will vary with the features, but are usually from 12,000 USD for an entry level model, and as much as 100,000 or more for a heavy-duty, long reach robot. Heavy Duty was the first and only full length CD release by the band 3-Ply which featured 8 recorded songs from 1995-1996. ...

Robot Manufacturers

ABB, formerly Asea Brown Boveri, is a multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, operating mainly in the power and automation technology areas. ... EPSON Robots is the robotics design and manufacturing department of Japanese corporation Seiko Epson, the brand-name watch and computer printer producer. ... FANUC Robotics America, Inc. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Intelligent Actuator, also called IAI, was founded in Japan in 1976. ... KUKA industrial robots welding a car body in the white section of a production line. ... Yaskawa Electric Corporation is a Japanese manufacturer of servos, machine controllers, AC drives, switches and robots. ... Yamaha Motor Company Limited ) (TYO: 7272 ), a Japanese motorized vehicle-producing company (whose HQ is at 2500 Shingai, Iwata, Shizuoka), is part of the Yamaha Corporation. ...

Notes

1. ^ ISO Standard 8373:1994, Manipulating Industrial Robots – Vocabulary

See also

References

• Nof, Shimon Y. (editor) (1999). Handbook of Industrial Robotics, 2nd ed. John Wiley & Sons. 1378 pp. ISBN 0-471-17783-0.
  A comprehensive reference on the categories and applications of industrial robotics.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Industrial robots

• Industrial robots and robot system safety (by OSHA, so in the public domain).
• Robotic Industries Association.