What is an Industrial Robot?

An Industrial Robot is an electro-mechanical device comprising:

• Mechanical structure of cast and fabricated construction
• Independent Servo System to power each axis
• Integrated computer based controller
• I/O Signal capability
• Hard Drive and RAM for program/variable storage
• Hand Tooling/Gripper System

During the early days of the industry many different configurations were built with varying degrees of success, and are described as follows:

• Cartesian - Simple X, Y, Z linear axes.
• Cylindrical - Linear Y and Z on a rotating base
• Polar - As demonstrated by the original 'Unimate'
• Revolute - Articulated arm on a rotating base
• Scara - Cylindrical axes with a linear up/down

For images of various robot configurations visit the robotsystems archive. The most widely used arm configurations today are revolute and scara. Bang/bang pneumatic devices and high tech CMM's favour the Cartesian system.

The original Unimate ( the world's first industrial robot) was powered by hydraulics with a point to point, cored wire memory, recording individual locations.

As testament to the original concept of the Unimate and the vision of it's designers, it should be noted that Unimates are still working in 2006. Not bad for a machine launched in 1961.

Hydraulic robots were the only solution for serious load shifting (100kg+) in the early days. With the onset of advanced control technology and AC brushless drives, heavy duty all electric robots can now handle loads in excess of 500kg.