Industrial Robotics (6RME02)

Dr. Manjunath C.T.

Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, SIT
 Module 1_Chapter 1

• Automation and Robotics

• Brief history of robotics
• Robot Anatomy
• Robotic configurations
• Cartesian
• Cylindrical
• Spherical or polar
• Articulated or Anthropomorphic or Joint arm
• Robot motions
• Types of joints
• Joint notation scheme
• Work volume
• Robot drive systems
• Control Systems
• Precision of movement
Robot Anatomy

• Deals with physical construction of body, arm and Joint 2

wrist of the robot Link 2
• Manipulator – body + arm + wrist
• Consists of series of links and joints Joint 1
• Links – rigid members between joints End-
• Joints – linear or rotary effector
• Each joint has DoF
• Robots - 5 or 6 DoF Link 0
• Body + arm – positioning of objects in work volume
• Wrist assembly – orientation of objects Base
Robot Configurations

Cartesian configuration Cylindrical configuration

Joint arm or Articulated or Anthropomorphic

Spherical or polar configuration
configuration
Joint types for robot motions

• Translational motion
• Linear (L)

• Rotary motion
• Rotational (R), Twisting (T), Revolving (V)

Rotational (R) Twisting (T) Revolving (V)

Body-arm motions

• Designed to enable the robot to move its end effector to a desired position
• For polar, cylindrical or joint-arm configuration – 3 DoF is achieved, they are
• Vertical traverse
• Radial traverse
• Rotational traverse
Wrist motions

• Designed to enable the robot to orient the

end effector with respect to the task being
performed
• Example: welding, grasping
• Wrist is provided with upto 3 DoF
• Wrist roll
• Wrist pitch
• Wrist yaw
Commonly used industrial robots

• PUMA • SCARA
• Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly • Selective Complaint Assembly Robot Arm
or Programmable Universal Machine for Arm • Manufacturer – Sankyo Seiki, Pentel and NEC in
• Manufacturer - Unimation Japan
Joint notation scheme

• Use joint symbols – L, R, T, V to designate joint types used to construct robot manipulator
• Body-arm assembly separated from wrist assembly using colon (:) operator
• Example- TRR:TR
• TRR is body-arm assembly notation
• TR is wrist assembly
• Using the notation scheme explained, describe the particular robot systems for the
following notations
• LLR
• RLR
• LRR
• LLR:TR
• LVR:TRT
Work Volume

• Work Volume is the space that a robot can cover

• It is the space within which the robot can manipulate its wrist end
• Exact size and shape of work volume is crucial in deciding whether robot is suitable for
job or not
• Determined by
• Robot’s physical configuration
• Sizes of body, arm and wrist components
• Limits of the robot’s joint movements
Robot Drive Systems

• Robots require drive systems to move body, arm and wrist

• Drive systems can determine
• Speed of operation
• Load carrying capacity
• Dynamic performance
• Kind of application
• Types of drive systems
• Hydraulic drive system
• Electric drive system
• Pneumatic drive system
• Most sophisticated robots – Hydraulic and pneumatic
• Low load carrying applications - Pneumatic
Robot Drive Systems

• Hydraulic Drive • Electric Drive

• Uses pressurised hydraulic fluid to drive • Uses dc motors to drive
• Provides high speed and strength, hence • Less speed and strength, hence used in
used with larger robots smaller robots
• More accurate and exhibit repeatability
• Designed to actuate rotary joint or linear
joint • Types
• DC stepper motor driven
• Applications: Spray painting, Welding etc
• DC servo motor driven
• Advantages
• Advantages
• Greater speed and strength • Small and requires less floor space
• Disadvantages • More precise, hence used in
• Occupies more floor space and oil assembly applications
leakage • Disadvantages
• Not suitable for heavy duty
applications
Robot Drive Systems

• Pneumatic Drive
• Uses air as the medium to drive
• Small robots for low load applications
• Fewer DoF, hence limited movement
• Limited to pick and place material handling operations
• Have the ability to absorb shocks
Control System and Dynamic response

• Robot should have control system to regulate the movements or motion

• Four different types:
• Limited-sequence robots
• Playback robots
• Point-to-point control (PTP)
• Continuous path control (CP)
• Intelligent robots
• Limited-sequence robots
• Lowest level of control
• Controlled mechanically to define the movements of each joint
• Positions and sequences of end-effectors are established mechanically
• Uses pegboard or stepping witch to sequence the operations
• No feedback mechanism is associated with this controller
• Used more commonly in pneumatic drive system
• Applications: Pick-and-place operations
• Playback robot
• Sophisticated control unit,
• series of positions or motions are taught to the robot recorded in memory repeated
• Have servo controlled feedback system to ensure proper motions
• Types
• Point-to-point control (PTP)
• Continuous path control (CP)
• Point-to-point control (PTP)
• Performs cycles that consists of series of desired point locations and related actions
• Robot is taught each point, and points are recorded into control unit
• PTP robots do not control the path taken by the robot
• Continuous path control (CP)
• Capable of motion cycles in which the path followed by the robot is controlled
• Robot is moved through the desired path, and the programmer specifies the starting point
and the end point.
• Control unit calculated the individual points that robot should follow.
• Straight and curved path is common form of CP control
• Applications: Spray painting
• Intelligent robot
• Most sophisticated robot used in industries
• Play back a programmed cycle but also can interact with its environment
• Can alter the programs in response to the conditions in workplace.
• Can make logical decisions based on the sensor data received from the operation.
• Can communicate with humans or computer based system during work cycle.
• Applications
• Space applications
• Under sea
• Nuclear applications
• Defense applications
Precision of movement

• Performance is measured based on

• Spatial resolution
• Accuracy
• Repeatability
• Spatial resolution
• Smallest increment of movement into which the robot can divide work volume
• Depends on
• System’s control resolution
• Mechanical inaccuracies -Elastic deflection in the structural members, gear backlash,
stretching of pulley
• System control resolution –
• determined by robot’s position control system and feedback measurement system
• Control system divide total range of movement of joint into individual increments
• increments depends on the bit storage capacity in control memory
• Number of increments = 2𝑛 , 𝑛 is number of bits in the control memory
• Spatial resolution can be improved by increasing the bit capacity of the control memory
• Problem 1:
One of the axis of robot is telescoping arm with a total range of 0.50 m. The robot’s
control memory has an 8-bit storage capacity for this axis. Determine the control
resolution for the axis.
• Problem 2:
A large Cartesian coordinate robot has one orthogonal slide with a total range of
0.50 m. One of the specifications on the robot is that it have a maximum control resolution
of 0.010 inches. Determine the number of bits of storage capacity which the robot’s
control memory must possess to provide this level of precision.
• Accuracy
• Positioning of wrist end at a desired target point within the work volume
• Defined based on system resolution
• Ability to achieve a given target point depends on how closely the robot can define the
control increments for each of its joint motions
• Taken as one half of the system resolution

• Affected by several factors:

• The work volume
• Accuracy improves if motion cycle is restricted to a limited work range
• Load carried by the robot
• Computer control algorithms – position errors due to rounding-off
• Repeatability
• Ability to position the wrist at a point in space that had previously been taught to robot
• It is the positional deviation from the average of different positions or displacements
• Through a greater number of experiments the robot will give precise repeatability
• Repeatability of robots is better than accuracy

Repeated actual positions

Required position

Repeatability

Accuracy