The significance of automation and robots in all manufacturing industries is growing. Industrial robots have replaced humans inside a wide variety of industries. Robots out perform humans in jobs that need precision, speed, endurance and reliability. Robots safely perform dirty and dangerous jobs. Traditional manufacturing robotic applications include material handling (pick make), assembling, painting, welding, packaging, palletizing, product inspection and testing. Industrial robots are widely-used in a diverse range of industries including automotive, electronics, medical, food production, biotech, pharmaceutical and machinery.

The ISO concise explaination a manipulating industrial robot is "an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose manipulator". Based on the definition it could be fixed set up or mobile to use in industrial automation applications. These industrial robots are programmable in three or more axes. They're multi-functional items that could be custom-built and set to carry out a number of operations.



The main advantages of industrial robots is because they might be developed to suit industry specific requirements and may work continuously for years, consistently meeting high manufacturing quality standards. The cost-effective life time of your industrial robot is around 12-16 years. Because of the persistent accuracy industrial robots have become variety a part of manufacturing.

Industrial robots are categorized into different categories based on their mechanical structure. The most important types of industrial robots are:

Gantry (Cartesian) Robot: They're stationary robots having three elements of motion. They work from an overhead grid having a rectangular work envelope. They may be mainly accustomed to perform 'pick and place' actions. Gantry robots have their axes higher than the work causing them to be also perfect for dispensing applications.
SCARA Robots: (Selectively Compliant Articulated Robot Arm) These robots have 4 axes to move. They move in the x-y-z coordinated circular work envelope. They are utilised for factory automation requiring pick and set work, application and assembly operations and handling machine tools.
Articulated robots: An articulated robot has rotary joints. It could have from two to ten or even more interactive joints. Articulated robots are fitted to welding, painting and assembly.

Basic industrial robot designs may be customized by having different peripherals. End effectors, optical systems, and motion controllers are necessary add-ons. End effectors would be the end-of-arm-tooling (EOAT) attached with robotic arms. Grippers or wrenches which might be utilized to move or assemble parts are instances of end effectors. End effectors are created and accustomed to sense and talk with the external environment. The conclusion effectors' design depends on the application requirements from the specific industry. Machine Vision systems are robotic optical systems. They may be built-on digital input/output devices and computer networks used to control other manufacturing equipment like robotic arms. Machine vision can be used for the inspection of product which for example semiconductor chips. Motion controllers are used to move robots and position stages smoothly and accurately with sub-micron repeatability.

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