Introduction to Robotics 7 1.3 BASIC COMPONENTS OF ROBOTS, ‘A robot or robotic system has certain hardware and software components to accomplish a task. The main components in various subsystems are briefly presented in this section. These include: manipulator or arm, end-effector, actuators, sensors, controller and communication interfacing devices used for monitoring and operating the robot. 1. Manipulator: A mechanical manipulator refers to the body, arm and wrist assembly of a robot. Robot anatomy is concemed with the physical construction of the body, arm and wrist of the machine. Most of the robots are mounted on a base which is fastened to the floor. Wrist is mounted at the end of the arm. Wrist consists of a number of components that allow it to orient in different directions. Relative movements between the various components of the body, arm and wrist are provided by a series of joints. These joint movements usually involve either rotating or sliding motions. Hand is attached to the end of the wrist. Technically the hand is called end-effector. End-effector is not considered as a part of the robot's anatomy. The arm and body joints of manipulator are used to position the end-effector, while wrist joints are used to orient the end-effector. 2, End-effector: An end-effector also known as end-of-arm tool or more simply hand is a system that links the mechanical portion of the robot (manipulator) to the parts being handled or worked-on. It ives an ability to pick up and transfer the parts and or handle a multitude of different tools to perform work on the parts. An end-effector acts either as a gripper or as a tool. Wrist is attached to the gripper through a face plate, An end-effector is has four elements: a means of attachment of the gripper or tool to the wrist mounting plate, power system for actuation, mechanical linkages and integrated sensors. End-effector should be compact and capable of operating at different payloads. 3. Actuators: The joints of robot are powered by actuators to produce either rotating or sliding motions in the linkage. Actuators are similar to muscles of a human body. They transform an input signal source into desired motions. Common power delivery or excitation sources include: pneumatic and hydraulic drives and servo-motors or stepper motors. Hydraulic and pneumatic drive systems use devices such as linear pistons and rotary actuators to accomplish the motion of a joint. Some other examples include: linear and rotary actuators, solenoids, comb drive, electro active polymers etc. wear actuators receive power from a motor and give a motion to drive-screw through synchronous timing belts or worm gears. Such a motion of screw pushes a drive nut along the screw, which in turn moves out the rod. Electric motors are common actuating system in most of the industrial robots Independent DC seryomotors are commonly employed to provide a computed torque at each joint to drive the end-effector in a desired trajectory or path, Many other actuation systems such as piezomotors, shape memory effect systems, magneto and electro theological systems can also be used for driving the joints of robot. 4. Sensors: Sensors are conveniently located on the robot and used to physically measure and determine the state (positions, orientation and velocity) of the manipulator links. Sensors also measure and determine the forces and moments exerted by the manipulated object. The control actions depend on the feedback received from the sensors. Therefore they are sometimes called as feedback elements. Sensors also perform the task of gathering data about its surroundings. Many types of sensors are used in robots. These include: biological, vibrational, auditory, radiation, optical, mechanical, chemical, electromagnetic, thermal and more. Most sensors operate via electrical or electronic signals, although other types of sensors exist. Basically, a sensor is a type of transducer. That is it converts a signal from one form to another. For example a displacement sensor such as potentiometer converts the actual displacement to be measured into equivalent voltage. Robotic systems often attached with external sensors like vision systems, touch and tactile sensors, speech synthesizers ete to communicate with other devices in the working layout.8 — Robotics-Control and Programming mnie device that continuously measures the si produce a desired motion of ‘Conti 5. Controller: The controller is an electro sensors and provides output signal to actuators to controller together with the actuator is called control system. closed-loop type. In open-loop systems the sensory information closed-loop systems, the sensor measurements are used as fe generation of updated actuation signals. The controller compares t to estimate an error. In real-time environments, the controllerIntroduction to Robotics 9 concept of modularity is used for the design of manipulator flexibility, economy, ease of maintenance and rapid deployment. A fully modular re-configurable robot consisting of a set of standardized modules can be configured to different structures for different task requirements. Modules may have different output powers to provide a wide variety of configurations. However, the common feature of all current modular robots is the use of self-actuated modules. Individually each component of a robotic system acts as a module and collectively gives a desired action. Such a modular approach as shown in Fig. 1.4 is quite useful during the design of robots working in hazardous (unstructured) environments. For example, automated execution of remote tasks in hazardous environments may result by integrating computer models and sensors. Extensive use of sensing, computer modeling and their integration results in fast and safe remote operations. Beer Sa eee NN A ene sensors ‘Computer — ss as GoNEea +{ Transmission +{_ Robot arm End effector ject Internal sensors Peripheral devices 1.4 Modular structure of robot system In Figure 1.4, the ‘peripheral devices’ block refers to the equipment used in conjunction with the robot to form a complete robotic system. Such equipments include: grippers, conveyors, part positioning systems and part or material feeders. Internal sensors such as potentiometers and encoders are part of closed axis-control loops and helps in monitoring the joint position, velocity, acceleration, wrist force and gripper force. External sensors update the robot model and are used for approximation, touch, geometry, vision and safety. A data acquisition system uses data from the sensors to generate patterns, Data processing system then identifies the patterns and generates frames for the dynamic world-model processor. Modular robot concepts and techniques have been of interest in the robotics field since the 1980s. Several topologies of modular robots have been formulated. 1.4 CONFIGURATIONS OF MANIPULATOR Industrial robots are available in a wide variety of sizes, shapes and physical configurations. Several linkage configurations have been devised based on their application area. Most of the industrial ‘manipulator are basically open loop serial linkages. Links are connected with different kinematic pairs, Physically the kinematic pairs are realized as joints. To reach a point in space, an end-effector should have a minimum three axis control. In serial manipulators, commonly rotating and sliding pairs are used. Closed-loop parallel manipulator designs use additionally the spherical, cylindrical and universal pairs. It is therefore necessary to distinguish the mobility provided by each joint in order to measure the overall motion at the end-effector. This section presents a brief introduction to various kinematic Pairs in robots together with different linkage configurations available depending on the working volume.