Industrial robots

An industrial robot is a robot system used for manufacturing. Industrial robots are automated, programmable and capable of movement on two or more axes.

Typical applications of robots include welding, painting, assembly, pick and place for printed circuit boards, packaging and labeling, palletizing, product inspection, and testing; all accomplished with high endurance, speed, and precision. They can help in material handling and provide interfaces.

The most commonly used robot configurations are articulated robots, SCARA robots, delta robots and cartesian coordinate robots, (gantry robots or x-y-z robots). In the context of general robotics, most types of robots would fall into the category of robotic arms (inherent in the use of the word manipulator in ISO standard 1738). Robots exhibit varying degrees of autonomy:

The earliest known industrial robot, conforming to the ISO definition was completed by "Bill" Griffith P. Taylor in 1937 and published in Meccano Magazine, March 1938. The crane-like device was built almost entirely using Meccano parts, and powered by a single electric motor. Five axes of movement were possible, including grab and grab rotation. Automation was achieved using punched paper tape to energise solenoids, which would facilitate the movement of the crane's control levers. The robot could stack wooden blocks in pre-programmed patterns. The number of motor revolutions required for each desired movement was first plotted on graph paper. This information was then transferred to the paper tape, which was also driven by the robot's single motor. Chris Shute built a complete replica of the robot in 1997.

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