Industrial Robot Simplified

An industrial robot is a machine that can be programmed, controlled and manipulated in three or more axes for use in industries. When looking for more technical information regarding the industrial robot, there are some aspects that you have to have knowledge of. This article takes a brief look at some of the defining parameters of this machine.

The first parameter is the number of axes. Axes is used in this case to describe the three dimensions in a Cartesian plane, and not the wood chopping tool. For industrial purpose, the arm of this machine must be programmable to ensure that it can turn and twist in three dimensions, that is to yaw, to
roll and to pitch.

The degrees of freedom of a machine is another defining parameter. This is the same as the number of axes of the machine, and they are not always necessarily three. Some robots are designed only to work in two dimensions. The working envelope of a machine is the range within which robots can work. In other words, it is how far it can reach with its arm.

The kinematics of robots refers to how the joints and rigid parts of the machine are arranged. How these parts are arranged determine how they move as a unit.

There are three distinct classes of robots, each of which has unique kinematics. These are Cartesian, parallel and SCARA. The carrying capacity of robots is used to describe how much load it can carry at a time.

The speed of an industrial robot describes how fast the end of the arm of the robot can be moved. Whether it is measured in angular speed or linear speed is dependent on the manufacturer or any other interested party. Acceleration is another important parameter when it comes to robots, and it is used to describe how each arm can move from one point to another in a given time.

The accuracy of robots describes how one of them is able to reach and work at a certain point once the command has been given. How accurate it is said to be is measured by measuring by how much it fails to hit its intended target. The accuracy of robots can be adjusted using technologies like infrared and other sophisticated systems of vision. There are various techniques of calibrating robots.

Another frequently used parameter is the repeatability of a machine. This is used in reference to how accurately it is able to get back to a certain position once it has performed a certain task. If it is asked to get to a certain position in a plane after performing a task, but it keeps missing the point by the smallest of margins.

It has to be calibrated to correct this problem.It is important to note the difference between accuracy and repeatability in reference to an industrial robot. The latter is more important than the other.

It is therefore more important to have repeatability than to have accuracy by a robot. In the true sense, repeatability depends, of course, on accuracy.