Delta robot

A delta robot is a type of parallel robot. It consists of three arms connected to universal joints at the base. The key design feature is the use of parallelograms in the arms, which maintains the orientation of the end effector. By contrast, a Stewart platform can change the orientation of its end effector.

Delta robots have popular usage in picking and packaging in factories because they can be quite fast, some executing up to 300 picks per minute.

The delta robot (a parallel arm robot) was invented in the early 1980s by a research team led by professor Reymond Clavel at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland). The purpose of this new type of robot was to manipulate light and small objects at a very high speed, an industrial need at that time. In 1987, the Swiss company Demaurex purchased a license for the delta robot and started the production of delta robots for the packaging industry. In 1991 Reymond Clavel presented his doctoral thesis 'Conception d'un robot parallèle rapide à 4 degrés de liberté', and received the golden robot award in 1999 for his work and development of the delta robot. Also in 1999, ABB Flexible Automation started selling its delta robot, the FlexPicker. By the end of 1999 delta robots were also sold by Sigpack Systems.

In 2009, FANUC released the newest version of the Delta robot, the FANUC M-1iA Robot, and would later release variations of this Delta robot for heavier payloads. FANUC released the M-3iA in 2010 for heavier payloads, and most recently the FANUC M-2iA Robot for medium-sized payloads in 2012.

The delta robot is a parallel robot, i.e. it consists of multiple kinematic chains connecting the base with the end-effector. The robot can also be seen as a spatial generalisation of a four-bar linkage.

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