Defining Qualities of Robots 

 

Robot Definition

A robot is an automated machine. The difference is that this kind of machine has some intelligent abilities similar to humans or creatures, such as perception, planning, movement, and collaboration. It is an automated machine with a high degree of flexibility.

Robot classification

From the application environment of our country, robots are divided into two categories: industrial robots and special robots. International robotics scholars, starting from the application environment, divide robots into two categories: industrial robots in manufacturing environments and service and humanoid robots in non-manufacturing environments.

The so-called industrial robot is a multi-joint manipulator or multi-degree-of-freedom robot for the industrial field. Such as a manipulator. Special robots are various advanced robots that are used in non-manufacturing industries and serve humans in addition to industrial robots. Including service robots, underwater robots, micro-operating robots, entertainment robots, military robots, agricultural robots, robotic machines, etc.

Industrial robot application

The meaning of industrial robots: Industrial robots are multi-purpose automatic operating devices that can imitate the functions of certain organs of the human body (mainly motor functions), have independent control systems, and can change working procedures and programming.

Industrial robots can replace people in industrial production to do monotonous, frequent and repetitive long-term operations, or operations in dangerous and harsh environments, such as stamping, pressure casting, heat treatment, welding, coating, plastic product forming, machining and simple assembly processes, as well as in the atomic energy industry and other sectors, to complete the handling or process operations of harmful materials to the human body.

Composition of industrial robots

Actuator-The actuator can grab the workpiece, and send the workpiece to the designated location according to the prescribed speed of movement and trajectory of movement, and put down the workpiece. Usually the actuator has the following parts: 

1. Hand. The hand is the contact used by industrial machines to hold workpieces or tools. Some industrial robots directly fix tools (such as welding guns, paint spray guns, containers, etc.) to the hand, so it no longer has to install additional hands.

2. Wrist. The wrist is the part that connects the arms together. Its role is to adjust the orientation and posture of the hand, and to expand the range of movement of the arm.

3. Arm. The arms support the wrists and hands, expanding the range of hand activities. Whether it is the hand, wrist or arm, there are many shaft holes. There is a shaft in the hole, and a joint is formed between the shaft and the arm. If the robot has one joint, it has one degree of freedom.

Mechanical body

1.The role of the mechanical body is to support the hands, wrists and arms, and the drive device and other devices are also fixed to the mechanical body.

2.The walking mechanism is used for industrial robots that can walk, and its mechanical body can be moved, otherwise the mechanical body is directly fixed on the base. The walking mechanism is used to move industrial robots. Some walking mechanisms imitate human legs, while others are just track and wheel mechanisms.

3.The drive system is installed in the mechanical body, and the role of the actuator is to provide power to the actuator. According to different power sources, the transmission methods of the drive system are also divided into four types: hydraulic, pneumatic, electric and mechanical.

Control system

1.The role of the control system. The control system is the command center of industrial robots. He controls the actions of industrial robots in accordance with prescribed procedures. The control system can also store various instructions (such as action sequence, trajectory, speed of movement, and time rhythm of action, etc.), and also issue instructions to each execution element. When necessary, the control system can monitor its own behavior, and once there is deviant behavior, it can investigate the cause of the failure by itself and issue an alarm signal in time.

2.Artificial intelligence system. It is to give industrial robots five sensory functions to realize the automatic recognition and adaptive operation of workpieces by robots. Adaptive intelligent mechanical systems are also the current development direction of mechatronics technology. Although the application of fuzzy computers is in the initial stage of this step, truly adaptive intelligent systems will definitely break through here.

Detection system-mainly used to detect the position and posture of one’s own execution system, and timely feedback these situations to the control system. Based on this feedback information, the control system sends out a signal to adjust the action, so that the actuator can move further, so that the execution system can reach the specified position and posture with a certain accuracy.

The characteristics of industrial robots-versatility, softness, automation, and accuracy.

The main types of industrial robots-welding robots, painting robots, assembly robots, mining robots, handling robots, food industry robots

A brief introduction to the development of industrial robots-Japan is the world’s number one in terms of technical strength and quantity. Europe and the United States are quickly catching up with Japan. China is relatively backward and has developed rapidly in recent years. Robot performance has increased.

Welding robot

The most widely used type of welding robot is the industrial robot used in welding operations.

Classification of welding robots-according to their application, they are divided into the following 2 categories, 

1.Arc Welding Robots: The most commonly used applications are melting pole active gas shielded welding (CO2/MAG) for structural steel, melting pole inert gas shielded welding (MIG) for stainless steel and aluminum, tungsten pole inert gas shielded welding (TIG) for various metals, etc.

2.Spot Welding Robots: A typical application area is the welding assembly line of the car body. But now there is a trend. That is, the application of spot welding robots in small and medium-sized parts manufacturing enterprises is also constantly expanding. According to the structural coordinates, it can be divided into: cartesian coordinate type, cylindrical coordinate type, spherical coordinate type, and total joint type.

The advantage of welding robots is to stabilize and improve the welding quality and ensure its uniformity. Improve labor productivity and produce continuously 24 hours a day. Improve workers’ working conditions and can work in harmful environments. Reduce the requirements for worker operation technology. Shorten the preparation cycle for product modification and replacement, and reduce the investment in corresponding equipment. It can realize the automation of welding of small batches of products. Provide technical support for welding flexible production lines.

The composition of welding robots-mainly includes two parts: robots and welding equipment.

1.The robot consists of a robot body and a control cabinet (hardware and software).

2.Welding equipment, taking arc welding and spot welding as an example, consists of welding power supply (including its control system), wire feed welding (arc welding), welding torch (pliers) and other parts. For intelligent robots, there should also be sensing systems, such as laser or camera sensors and their control devices.

Spray Paint Robot

Painting robots can work continuously in harsh environments, and have the characteristics of flexible work and high work accuracy. Therefore, painting robots are widely used in automobiles, large structural parts and other painting robots are widely used in automobiles, large structural parts and other painting production lines to ensure product processing quality, improve production efficiency, and reduce the labor intensity of operators.

The spray painting robot has the following characteristics in terms of use environment and action requirements:

1.The working environment contains explosive spray agent vapor.

2.Moving at high speed along the trajectory, all points passing through are work points.

3.Most of the sprayed parts are on the conveyor belt, spraying while moving, so it requires some special properties.

Assembly robot

With the improvement of the robot’s intelligence, it is possible to automatically assemble complex products such as automobile engines, electric motors, etc., and can greatly improve product quality and production efficiency.

The assembly robot with sensors can better adapt to the soft operation of the object. The sensors often used in assembly robots are vision sensors, tactile sensors, proximity sensors, and force sensors.

Vision sensors are mainly used for position compensation of parts or workpieces, discrimination of parts or position errors of workpieces, and prevention of collisions.

Force sensors are generally installed on the wrist to detect the force on the wrist. They are generally used in precision assembly or operations  that require force control.

Assemble the peripheral equipment of the robot.  When the robot performs assembly operations, in addition to the robot host, claws, and sensors, the parts supply device and the workpiece handling device are also extremely important. Both from the perspective of investment and from the perspective of installation area, they tend to account for a larger proportion than the robot host. Peripheral equipment is often controlled by a programmable controller, and generally has a bench, case bar, etc.

Industrial robots for other purposes

1.Handling robots: mainly used for loading and unloading operations, palletizing and palletizing operations in some processes in the factory. The accuracy of this type of robot is relatively low, but the load is relatively large and the movement speed is relatively high. Most of its robot operators use spot welding or arc welding robot structures, and some use frame and cartesian coordinate structures. With the continuous improvement of the degree of factory automation and the acceleration of production beats, handling robots are used more and more.

2.Water cutting robot, laser processing robot. It uses new tools such as high-pressure water and laser to cut, weld or special process metal materials on workpieces. The characteristic of high-pressure water cutting joints is that the joints are smooth, no secondary treatment is required, and the deformation of the workpiece caused by other thermal processing methods is avoided. Laser processing makes full use of the characteristics of lasers to achieve precision cutting, drilling, welding, and surface heat treatment of workpieces, which are often impossible to complete by traditional processing methods.

3.The development trend of industrial robots. Robotics is a comprehensive high-tech technology. It involves the development of a variety of related technologies and disciplines, such as mechanics, control engineering, computers, artificial intelligence, microelectronics, sensing technology, materials science, and bionics. On the other hand, it also depends on the development process of these related technologies and disciplines.

A. Robot Operator.

A robot operator with a large load/weight ratio, high speed and high precision has always been the goal pursued by robot designers. Through the use of modern design methods such as finite element simulation analysis and simulation design, the robot operator has achieved optimized design.

B. Parallel Robots.

The use of parallel mechanisms and the use of robotics to achieve high-precision measurement and processing is the expansion of robotics to CNC technology, which has laid the foundation for the integration of robotics and CNC technology in the future companies such as COMAU in Italy and FANUC in Japan have developed such products.

C. The performance of the control system.

It has been developed from a 6-axis robot that used to control the standard to now be able to control 21 or even 27 axes to achieve coordinated movement of multi-robot systems and peripheral equipment, and software servo and full digital control have been realized. In this field, Japan YASKAWA and Germany KUKA are in the leading position.

D. Sensor System. 

Laser sensors, vision sensors and force sensors have been widely used in industrial robot systems, and the use of laser sensors and vision sensors for automatic tracking of welds and automatic positioning of objects on automated production lines, the use of vision systems and force sensing systems for precision assembly operations, etc., has greatly improved the robot’s operating performance and adaptability to the environment. Japan YASKAWA/FANUC and Sweden ABB, Germany KUKA, REIS and other companies have launched such products.

E. Network Communication Function. 

The latest robot controllers of YASKAWA in Japan and KUKA in Germany have been connected to the Canbus/Profibus bus and some networks, enabling the robot to develop from special equipment to standardization.