Industrial Robotics

Sections:
1. Definition
2. Applications
3. Architectures
4. Robot Anatomy and Related Attributes
 Industrial Robot Defined

A general-purpose, programmable machine possessing

certain anthropomorphic characteristics
Why industrial robots are important?
 Robots can substitute for humans in hazardous work
environments
 Difficult handling task for humans
 Repetitive work cycle, infrequent changeovers
 Consistency and accuracy not attainable by humans
 Can be reprogrammed
 Most robots are controlled by computers and can
therefore be interfaced to other computer systems
 a re-programmable, multi-functional manipulator
designed to move materials, parts, tools or specialized
devices through various programmed motions for the
performance of a variety of tasks
 Robot – An electro-mechanical machine with
sensors, electronics and guided by computers
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzJ9V3UMnh4
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbki4HR41-4

©2008 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved. This material is protected under all copyright laws as they currently exist.
No portion of this material may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher. For the exclusive use of adopters of the book
Automation, Production Systems, and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, Third Edition, by Mikell P. Groover.
Industrial Robotics

ROBOT APPLICATIONS
 Industrial Robot Applications

1. Material handling applications

 Machine loading and/or unloading
 Material transfer: Pick-and-place; Palletizing

2. Machining – Processing operations

 Milling; Cutting;
 Spot welding and continuous arc welding
 Spray coating
 Other – water jet cutting, laser cutting, grinding

3. Assembly

4. Inspection
 Robotic Arc-Welding Cell

 Robot performs
flux-cored arc
welding (FCAW)
operation at one
workstation while
fitter changes
parts at the other
workstation
 Industrial Robotics

ROBOT ARCHITECTURES

Sequential/Serial robots

Parallel robots
 Sequential/serial robot

Robot manipulator - a series of joint-link combinations

 Parallel robot

It is in the early 80's when Reymond

Clavel (professor at EPFL - École
Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne,
Switzerland) comes up with the idea of
using parallelograms to build a parallel
robot with three translational and one
rotational degrees of freedom.

ABB Flexible Automation launched its Delta robot in 1999 under the

name IRB 340 FlexPicker.

Three industry sectors were aimed — the food, pharmaceutical, and

electronics industries.
Industrial Robotics

ROBOT ANATOMY
Joints
Drives
Sensors
End/Terminal effectors
Wrist configurations
Body and arm configurations
 Robot components

 Robot manipulator consists of two sections:

 Body-and-arm – for positioning of objects in the
robot's work volume
 Wrist assembly – for orientation of objects

 Manipulator consists of joints and links

 Joints provide relative motion
 Links are rigid members between joints
 Various joint types: translational and rotary
 Each joint provides a “degree-of-freedom”
 Most robots possess 5 or 6 degrees-of-freedom
 Types of robot joints

 Translational motion (Prismatic)

 Linear joint (type L)
 Orthogonal joint (type O)

 Rotary motion (Revolute)

 Rotational joint (type R)
 Twisting joint (type T)
 Revolving joint (type V)
 Translational Motion Joints

Linear joint
(type L)

Orthogonal
joint
(type O)
Rotary Motion Joints

Rotational joint
(type R)

Twisting joint
(type T)

Revolving joint
(type V)
 Examples

Orthogonal Orthogonal Rotational Linear

Rotational Rotational

Orthogonal

Rotational Orthogonal Orthogonal

Revolving
Twisting
 Robot Body-and-Arm Configurations

 Five common body-and-arm configurations for industrial

robots:
1. Cartesian coordinate body-and-arm assembly
2. Cylindrical body-and-arm assembly
3. Polar coordinate body-and-arm assembly
4. Jointed-arm body-and-arm assembly
5. Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA)
 Function of body-and-arm assembly is to position an
end effector (e.g., gripper, tool) in space
 Cartesian Coordinate
Body-and-Arm Assembly

 Notation LOO: high degree of

accuracy & repeatability heavy
loads, assembly/subassembly
 Linear movement, simple to
control
 Consists of three sliding joints,
two of which are orthogonal
 Other names include rectilinear
robot and x-y-z robot
 Cylindrical Body-and-Arm Assembly

 Notation TLO: Large payloads,

 Use – spot welding, casting,
forging, loading & unloading
 Repeatability & accuracy are
lower, sophisticated control
 Consists of a vertical column,
relative to which an arm
assembly is moved up or down
 The arm can be moved in or out
relative to the column
 Polar Coordinate
Body-and-Arm Assembly

 Notation TRL:
 Vertical structure
 Gas/Arc welding
 Less space

 Consists of a sliding arm (L joint) actuated relative to the

body, which can rotate about both a vertical axis (T joint)
and horizontal axis (R joint)
 Jointed-Arm Robot

 Notation TRR:

 General configuration
of a human arm
 SCARA Robot

 Notation VRO
 SCARA stands for
Selectively Compliant
Assembly Robot Arm
 Similar to jointed-arm robot
except that vertical axes are
used for shoulder and elbow
joints to be compliant in
horizontal direction for vertical
insertion tasks
 Wrist Configurations

 Body-and-arm determines global position of end effector

 Wrist assembly is attached to end-of-arm

 End effector is attached to wrist assembly
 Function of wrist assembly is to orient end effector

 2 or 3 degrees of freedom:
 Roll – Rotation of wrist about the arm axis
 Pitch – Up and down rotation of the wrist
 Yaw – Right and left rotation of the wrist
 Wrist Configuration

 Typical wrist assembly has two or three degrees-of-

freedom (shown is a three degree-of freedom wrist)
 Notation :RRT
 End Effectors
 The special tooling for a robot that enables it to
perform a specific task

 Two types:
 Grippers – to grasp and manipulate objects (e.g.,
parts) during work cycle
 Tools – to perform a process, e.g., spot welding,
spray painting
 Robot Mechanical Gripper

 A two-finger mechanical gripper for grasping rotational

parts
 Advances in Mechanical Grippers

 Dual grippers
 Interchangeable fingers
 Sensory feedback
 To sense presence of object
 To apply a specified force on the object
 Multiple fingered gripper (similar to human hand)
 Standard gripper products to reduce the amount of
custom design required
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0XGure7mak
 Joint Drive Systems

 Electric
 Uses electric motors to actuate individual joints
 Preferred drive system in today's robots

 Hydraulic
 Uses hydraulic pistons and rotary vane actuators
 Noted for their high power and lift capacity

 Pneumatic
 Typically limited to smaller robots and simple material transfer
applications
 Sensors in Robotics

Two basic categories of sensors used in industrial robots:

1. Internal - used to control position and velocity of the
manipulator joints to form feedback control loop
2. External - used to coordinate the operation of the robot with
other equipment in the work cell
3. Advanced sensor technologies
 Tactile - touch sensors and force sensors
 Proximity - when an object is close to the sensor
 Optical –sensor will be on at a specified distance
 Machine vision –Automatic inspection & analysis
 Other sensors - temperature, voltage, etc.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX8DNvfFuFU
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmtcug2ptg4
 Gripper
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx9axnp6rSM
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYAwP7Gn4N4

©2008 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved. This material is protected under all copyright laws as they currently exist.
No portion of this material may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher. For the exclusive use of adopters of the book
Automation, Production Systems, and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, Third Edition, by Mikell P. Groover.