Fundamentals of Robot Technology: An Introduction to Industrial Robots, Teleoperators and Robot Vehicles

Abstract

1: Introduction.- Definitions of 'robot' and 'robotics'.- Other definitions in robotics.- Connections between robotics and some related subjects.- Artificial intelligence.- Flexible manufacturing systems, factory automation, computer-aided manufacturing.- Bibliographic notes.- 2: Geometric configurations for robots.- The distinction between arms and vehicles.- Structural elements of manipulators.- Degrees of freedom and number of joints.- Types of joint.- Construction of joints.- Parallel linkages.- Constrained linkages.- Distributed manipulators.- Robot transporters and workpiece positioners.- Arm configuations.- Cartesian.- Polar.- Cylindrical.- Horizontally jointed arms.- Vertically jointed or anthropomorphic arms.- Other arm designs.- Tension structures.- Wrists.- Direct drive to each axis.- Gear drives.- Compliance in wrists.- End effectors (grippers, tools and hands).- Two-jaw grippers.- Special purpose mechanical grippers.- Vaccum and magnetic grippers.- Tools.- Tool and gripper changing.- Anthropomorphic and other adaptive hands.- Two dimensional adaptive grippers.- Anthropomorphic hands.- Bibliographic notes.- 3: Operation, programming and control of industrial robots.- Types of industrial robot and their methods of operation.- Pick and place manipulators.- Point to point robots.- Continuous path robots.- Methods of teaching and programming.- Programming pick and place robots.- Walk-through teaching or pendant teaching.- Walk-through teaching with path control.- Lead-through teaching or physical arm leading.- Off-line programming.- The implications of sensing for robot control.- Types of controller and program memory.- Analysis and control.- Formulating the kinematic equations.- Solving the kinematic equations.- The Jacobian formulation.- The 'forward' and 'inverse' problems of dynamics.- Specifying trajectories.- Servo control of actuators.- Programming languages for industrial robots.- Bibliographic notes.- 4: Actuators for robots.- Pneumatic actuation.- Pneumatic valves.- Hydraulic actuation.- Hydraulic valves.- Hydrostatic circuits.- Hydraulic pumps and associated equipment.- Electric actuation.- Direct current servomotors.- Alternating current servomotors (brushless direct current servomotors).- Stepper motors.- Other electromechanical actuators.- Mechanical transmission methods.- Inertia reduction.- Speed reduction.- Rotary/rectilinear motion conversion.- Differentials and parallelogram linkages.- Bibliographic notes.- 5: Sensing for robots.- Joint angle.- Potentiometers.- Resolvers and synchros.- Incremental and absolute encoders (usually optical).- Joint angular velocity.- Rectilinear position.- Force and torque.- Strain gauges.- Piezoelectric force transducers.- Proximity sensing and range measurement.- Touch sensing.- Resistance-based touch sensors.- Inductance and capacitance.- Piezoelectric transducers.- Thermal touch sensing.- Optical methods of touch sensing.- Slip.- Vision.- Vision hardware 98 Television cameras.- Illuminator.- Framestore.- Preprocessor.- General purpose computer.- Types of computer vision.- Two-dimensional vision with isolated objects and a binary image.- Stasticial pattern recognition.- Two-dimensional vision with isolated objects and a grey scale image.- Touching or overlapping objects.- Two-dimensional inspection.- Two-dimensional line tracking.- Three-dimensional vision: isolated objects.- Single image (monocular vision).- Stereo vision.- Structured illumination.- Range imaging.- Three-dimensional vision applied to a heap of parts.- Three-dimensional scene analysis for mobile robots.- Non-visual sensing in welding and other processes.- Bibliographic notes.- 6: Performance specifications of industrial robots.- Geometric configuration number of axes.- Positioning accuracy and repeatability.- Accuracy.- Repeatability.- Test methods for accuracy and repeatability.- Angular accuracy and repeatability.- Speed.- Speed and acceleration accuracy.- Spatial specifications: working volume, swe