Prepared by: RAHUL C. SUTHAR(06DME002)

TARUN R. PANCHAL (06DME011)

There has been a rapidly growing and widespread interest in robots, mechanical manipulation and hands, mobile platforms, walking machines and many other so – called robotic devices and ‘intelligent’ system.

These robotic technologies combined with rapid advances in electronics, controls, vision and other forms of sensing, and computing have been widely recognized for their potential application in almost all areas where machines enter our society.

The word ‘ROBOT’ came into English language in 1923 from the translation of a 1921 Czech play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robot) by Karel Capek.

It is derived from the Czech word ‘robota’, which means slave labour. The robots in the play are designed to replace human workers and are depicted as very efficient and indistinguishable from human.

The modern industrial robot was patented by George C. Devol in 1954 and he called it a ‘programmable articulated transfer device’. J. Engelberger and George C. Devol founded the world’s first robot company, Unimation Inc. in 1956, and the first industrial robot, called Unimate , was purchased by General Motors and installed at an automobile plant in New Jersey, USA, in 1961.

There is different definitions of robots.

The Webster dictionary defines a robot as ‘ an automatic device that performs functions normally ascribed to humans or a machine in the form of human.’

A more formal and restrictive definition from the Robot Institute of America (1969) defines robot as ‘ a reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools or specialized devices through various programmed motion for the performance of a variety of tasks’

Robotics is going to be a prominent component of manufacturing industry, which will affect human labour at all levels, from managers of production to shop floor unskilled workers. A programmable robot with number of degree of freedom and different configurations can perform specific and diverse tasks with the help of a variety of end effectors. On the industrial scene it can be reprogrammed and adapted to changes in process or production line. Robots are also finding many applications outside of industries, in research, hospitals, space, supermarkets, services sector, farmhouses, and even in home as pets. The applications outside the industry are much more complex, diverse and are based on human imaginations.

When talking about robot applications in industry as well as other places, one need to be concerned about safety. After all, a robot, as it is today and going to be for decades to come, is dumb machine, which is supposed to obey the commands.

‘The current day applications of robots can be categorized into two broad areas: Industrial applications and Non industrial applications.

Robots have many potential applications in › Pharmaceuticals industry.› Textile industry.› Chemical industry.› Mining industry.› Construction industry.› Energy sectors.]

Robots applications in the industries today are primarily in four fields:

i. Material handlingii. Operationsiii.Assembly iv.Inspection.

The most basic robot application is one in which the robot is required to pick a part or other material from one location and place it at another location. Many tasks performed by a robot require this basic pick-and-place operations. Some examples are……. Material transfer applications: A material handling operation in which

the primary objective is to move a part from one location to another without any complex constraints is the simplest operation of the robot.

Machine loading and unloading application: The loading of material or part and unloading it from a machine is the other material handling operation that is well suited for robotic application. The robot task is to pick the part from specific location, and place it in desired position and orientation into the work holding device of the machine, which may be chuck, vice etc. once the part is loaded into the machine, some manufacturing operations are performed on the part by the machine and then the part is unloaded from the machine. For unloading, the robot picks the part from the work holding device of the machine and place it at the delivery point or loads it into another machine.

Palletizing Application : Many material handling operations require stacking of parts, that is, to palletize them. Like loading and unloading applications palletize also involves two processes: Palletizing and Depalletizing. Palletizing is the process of stacking or storing the material, parts on pallet in specified manner. Individual parts are picked from a fixed pickup point and moved for placing them on the pallet in palletizing operation and are picked from the pallet, moved and placed at a fixed delivery point in Depalletizing operation.

A large number of robot applications are than just material handling applications. A class of these applications where the end – effectors is a tool instead of a gripper are classified as processing applications. With the tool the robot manipulator performs some manufacturing process function. The type of the tool depends upon the operation to be performed by the robot. The later provides the greater flexibility for the tool changing. Some of the processes where robots are efficiently utilized are: Welding Spot welding Spray painting Paint scraping

Assembly is the final stage of manufacturing and it is manual labour intensive. However, majority of the products requiring assembly operations have low or medium production volumes and large investments in specialized assembly equipment cannot be economically justified. Robotics or other programmable and flexible automation systems are idea for these operations.

Application of robot in inspection is growing area. Quality control in industrial manufacturing operation is essential in the competitive world. A manual inspection of the finished product as well as the in – process parts is a tedious and monotonous task for human operator. In large quantity production, 100 percent inspection is impossible and sampling and procedures of statistical quality control are restored to Robotics technology is expected to play a significant role in making 100 percent inspection possible.

Robots can be used to inspect physical dimensions, surface finish, and other characteristics of the raw materials, intermediate stages of parts, finished parts, sub assemblies or finished products. To perform the inspection tasks robot requires various sensors or vision systems.

The advances in robotics technologies are not directed only for its use in industries. There has been a parallel growth of robotic technology in non-industrial environments. Robots are finding their way into laboratories, energy plants, agriculture, hospitals, space, homes, services, educations etc.

The applications of robots are only limited by the need of imagination of the developer and the end user. Robots have almost invaded in every walk of life. The technology is advancing rapidly and today if you think a robot can not do a particular task, it will become reality tomorrow. Different applications of robots in some diverse segments are listed below.

Science fiction stories always considered robot as domestic slaves. This is going to be a reality in near future, though many of the current domestic applications are not much more than expensive toys. Some of the domestic applications possible are:Sweeping and cleaning.Cocking.Replacing pets.Garden maintenance. security.

The use of robots in human health care has a wide scope. Robotic technology is in use and going for expand in health care for:Patient care and monitoring.Surgery.Rehabilitation – prosthetic limbs and robotic wheel chair.Micro robots can be injected into human body to perform

microsurgery.

Service robots can carry our diverse functions like:Traffic control.Fire fighting.Drive a vehicle.Manage shopping malls.Serve food in restaurant.Maintenance and repair.Disaster recovery.

Robots use in agriculture and farming sector is very much limited today but is going to increase. They can be used to:Plough fields, sow seeds and transplant sapling.Pluck, sort and pack fruits.Bread livestock.Animal shearing.

With the help of robots, research in many inaccessible areas have possible because of their greater capability to face hazardous environments and remote handling capabilities. These include:Space exploration.Under sea exploration.Nuclear research.Geological exploration.

1770 Mechanism-driven life-like machine that can draw, play instrument and clocks made in Germany & Switzerland.

1830 Cam programmable lathe invented.1923 Karel Capek’s play Rossal’s Universal Robots (R.U.R.)1942 Asimov coins the word ‘robotics’ and gives his three laws of

robotics.1946 ENIAC, the first electronic computer developed at the

University of Pennsylvania.1947 The first servo electric – powered tele-operated robot at

MIT.1948 Book on feed back control, cybernetics written by Prof.

Norbert Weiner of MIT.1948 Transistor invented at Bell laboratories.1952 IBM’s first commercial computer, IBM701, marketed.1954 Unimation Inc. founded by J. Engelberger; CNC lathe

demonstrated at MIT.

1961 General Motors buy and installs the first Unimate at a plant in New Jersey to tend a die casting machine.

1968 Shakey, the first mobile robot with vision capability.1970 The Stanford arm designed with electrical actuators and

controlled by a computer.1973 Cincinnati Milacron's’ electrically actuated, mini computer

controlled industrial robot.1978 Unimation develops PUMA (Programmable Universal

Machine for Assembly), which can still be seen in many research labs.

1982 First educational robots introduced by Microbot and Rhino. 2000 Honda demonstrates Asimo humanoid robot .2001 Sony releases second generation Aibo robot dog.2004 Spirit and opportunity explore Mars surface and detect

evidence of past water.