Industrial Robotics

ME5510

Dr. M V A Raju Bahubalendruni

National Institute of Technology Puducherry
 Syllabus
▰ Introduction of Robot - Classification and characteristics, Advantages and Disadvantages of
Robots –Robot selection - work cell – Vision –Accidents – Safety – Maintenance- Installation

▰ Introduction of Robotic sensors – Types of Sensors - Robot with sensors

▰ Robot end effectors – Classification of end effectors

▰ Robot Programming

▰ Applications of Robots – Manufacturing Applications – Material handling applications –

Cleanroom robots

2
 Syllabus
▰ Introduction of Robot - Classification and characteristics, Advantages and Disadvantages of
Robots –Robot selection - work cell – Vision –Accidents – Safety – Maintenance- Installation

▰ Introduction of Robotic sensors – Types of Sensors - Robot with sensors

▰ Robot end effectors – Classification of end effectors

▰ Robot Programming

▰ Applications of Robots – Manufacturing Applications – Material handling applications –

Cleanroom robots

3
 Interfacing

In this chapter, we begin to consider the interface

between the human(user) and an industrial
robot.

Robot manipulators differentiate themselves

from fixed automation by being "flexible," which
means programmable.

Not only are the movements of manipulators

programmable, but, through the use of sensors
and communications with other factory
automation,.
 Robot Programming levels

There have been many styles

of user interface developed Teach by showing

Robot Programming
for programming robots.
(lead through)

Before the rapid proliferation

levels
of microcomputers in Explicit robot programming
languages
industry, robot controllers
resembled the simple
sequencers often used to
control fixed automation. Task-level programming
languages

LEVELS OF ROBOT PROGRAMMING

 Teach by showing (lead through)

Early robots were all programmed by a method

that we will call teach by showing. (Fixed
Automation)

which involved moving the robot to a desired

goal point and recording its position in a
memory that the sequencer would read during
playback.

During the teach phase, the user would guide

the robot either by hand or through interaction
with a teach pendant.

LEVELS OF ROBOT PROGRAMMING: Teach by showing

 Teach by showing (Powered lead through)

• Teach pendants are handheld button

boxes that allow control of each
manipulator joint or of each
Cartesian degree of freedom.

• Some teach pendants have

alphanumeric displays and are
approaching hand-held terminals in
complexity

• Teach mode

• Run mode

• *only Point to point motion (no

continuous)
• Complex paths are difficult

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAby_ilhoDQ

LEVELS OF ROBOT PROGRAMMING: Teach by showing

Teach by showing (Manual lead through)

8
Dr. M V A Raju Bahubalendruni
 Explicit robot programming languages
✓ Since the arrival of inexpensive and powerful computers, the trend has been increasingly toward
programming robots via programs written in computer programming languages.

✓ These computer programming languages have special features that apply to the problems of
programming manipulators and so are called robot programming languages (RPLs) .
Robot Programming

Specialized manipulation

Robot Programming
Teach by showing languages.

Languages (RPL)
Explicit robot
levels

programming
Robot library for an existing
languages computer language.

Task-level
programming Robot library for a new general-
languages purpose language.

LEVELS OF ROBOT PROGRAMMING: Explicit robot programming languages

 Specialized manipulation languages
• These robot programming languages
have been built by developing a
completely new language
• An example is the VAL language
developed to control the industrial
robots by Unimation, Inc
• VAL was developed especially as a
manipulator control language; as a
general computer language, it was quite
weak.
• For example, it did not support
floating-point numbers or character
strings, and subroutines could not pass
arguments.
• A more recent version, V-II, provided these features
and the latest V+, includes many new features. VAL's
continuous trajectory computation permits complex
motions to be executed quickly, with efficient use of
system memory and reduction in overall system
complexity. The VAL system continuously generates
robot control commands, and can simultaneously
interact with a human operator, permitting on-line
program generation and modification.
• Another example of a specialized manipulation
language is AL, developed at Stanford University.
• AL language is now a relic of the past, it nonetheless
provides good examples of some features still not found
in most modern languages (force control, parallelism)

LEVELS OF ROBOT PROGRAMMING: Explicit robot programming languages

 Specialized manipulation languages

Calling subroutine

PROGRAM
PICKPLACE
1. MOVE P1
Subroutine
2. MOVE P2
3. MOVE P3
4. CLOSEI 0.00
5. MOVE P4
6. MOVE P5
BASE [<dx>] , [<dy>] , [<dz>] , [<rotation>] 7. OPENI 0.00
8. MOVE P1
.END

LEVELS OF ROBOT PROGRAMMING: Subroutines in programming languages

 Robot library for an existing computer language
• These robot programming languages have been developed by starting with a
popular computer language (e.g., Pascal) and adding a library of robot-specific
subroutines.

• The user then writes a Pascal program making use of frequent calls to the predefined
subroutine package for robot-specific needs.

• An examples is AR-BASIC from American Cimfiex, essentially a subroutine

library for a standard BASIC implementation.

• JARS, developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is an example of such a

robot programming language based on Pascal.

LEVELS OF ROBOT PROGRAMMING: Explicit robot programming languages

 Robot library for a new general-purpose language

These robot programming languages have been developed by first creating a new
general-purpose language as a programming base and then supplying a library of
predefined robot-specific subroutines.

Examples of such robot programming languages are RAPID developed by ABB

Robotics, AML developed by IBM , and KAREL developed by GMF Robotics.

LEVELS OF ROBOT PROGRAMMING: Explicit robot programming languages

 Task-level programming languages

• These languages allow the user to command desired sub-goals

of the task directly, rather than specify the details of every
Teach by showing action the robot is to take.
Robot Programming

• In such a system, the user is able to include instructions in the

application program at a significantly higher level than in an
Explicit robot explicit robot programming language.
levels

programming
languages • For example, if an instruction to "grasp the bolt" is issued, the
system must plan a path of the manipulator that avoids
collision with any surrounding obstacles, must automatically
Task-level choose a good grasp location on the bolt, and must grasp it.
programming
languages • In contrast, in an explicit robot programming language, all
these choices must be made by the programmer.

LEVELS OF ROBOT PROGRAMMING: Task-level programming languages

 A robot Program as a path in space.

✓ The locus of points along the path defines the sequence of positions through
which the robot will move its wrist.

✓ In most of the applications an end effector is attached to the wrist, and the
program can be considered to be the path in space in which the end effector
is to be moved by the robot.

✓ Since the robot consists of several joints (axes) linked together, the
definition of the path in space in effect requires that the robot move its axes
through various positions in order to follow that path.

✓ For a robot with six axes , each point in the paths consists of six coordinated
values.
 A robot Program as a path in space. Contd..

The arm and body joints determine the

general position in space of the end
effector and the wrist determines its
orientation.

If we think of a point in space in the

robot program as a position and
orientation of the end effector, there is
usually more than one possible set of
joint coordinate values that can be used
for the robot to reach that point.
 A robot Program as a path in space. Contd..
Let us consider a robot with two orthogonal slides and only two addressable points per axis, the definition of points in space corresponds exactly with
joint coordinate system.

Example:1
Axis II

Step Move Comments

(1,2) (2,2)
1 1,1 Move to lower left corner
2 2,1 Move to lower right corner
3 2,2 Move to upper right corner
4 1,2 Move to upper left corner
5 1,1 Move back to start position
Axis I
(1,1) (2,1)
 A robot Program as a path in space. Contd..
In this example the robot can move in paths.

One possibility is that both axes will move at same time, and diagonal line between the two points.

The other possibility is that the robot will move only one axis at a time and trace out the path along the border of rectangle, either through point (2,2)
or through point (1,1)

Axis II

Step Move Comments

1 1,1 Move to lower left corner (1,2) (2,2)

2 2,1 Move to lower right corner

3 1,2 Move to upper right corner

4 1,1 Move back to start position

Axis I
(1,1) (2,1)
 A robot Program as a path in space. Contd..
✓ The question of which path the robot will take between two programmed points is not a trivial one.

✓ It is important for the programmer to know the answer in order to plan out the motion path correctly.
Unfortunately, there is no general rule that all robot follow.

✓ Limited-sequence non-servo robots, which are programmed using manual setup procedures rather than lead
through methods, can usually move both joints at the same time.

✓ Therefore, the path that is followed involves a slow motion, which is along the diagonal in our illustration.

✓ Other limited sequence robots move their joints in sequence rather than simultaneously.
 A robot Program as a path in space. Contd..
❖ Usually, these robots that move one axis at a time do so by moving the lower
numbered axes first.

❖ Thus, the path through point 2,2 is most likely in this example.

❖ However, there are no industry standards on this issue, and the programmer
must from users manual or by experimentation with the actual robot.

Path of limited sequence robot

Axis II with joints moved in sequence.

It is possible for the programmer to make Path of servo-

certain type of robots pass through points controlled robot,
(1,2) (2,2)
without actually including the points in the or limited
program. The key phrase is “pass through”. sequence robot
These are not addressable points in the using slow
program and the robot will not actually stop motion.
at them in the sense of an addressable point.

Axis I
(1,1) (2,1)