WEEK 9

Title of activity

- Research on robotic arm.

Objective

- To gain knowledge about robotic arm.

Content

- Do some research and reading to find information about robotic arm.
- A mechanical arm is robotic, usually programmable, with similar functions to a human arm. The links of such a manipulator are connected by joints allowing either rotational motion (such as in an articulated robot) or translational (linear) displacement^..
- The links of the manipulator can be considered to form a kinematic chain. The business end of the kinematic chain of the manipulator is called the end effector and it is analogous to the human hand.
- The end effector can be designed to perform any desired task such as welding, gripping, spinning etc., depending on the application. For example robot arms in automotive assembly lines perform a variety of tasks such as welding and parts rotation and placement during assembly.
-  Types

• Cartesian robot / Gantry robot: Used for pick and place work, application of sealant, assembly operations, handling machine tools and arc welding. It's a robot whose arm has three prismatic joints, whose axes are coincident with a Cartesian coordinator.
• Cylindrical robot: Used for assembly operations, handling at machine tools, spot welding, and handling at diecasting machines. It's a robot whose axes form a cylindrical coordinate system.
• Spherical robot / Polar robot (such as the Unimate): Used for handling at machine tools, spot welding, diecasting, fettling machines, gas welding and arc welding. It's a robot whose axes form a polar coordinate system.
• SCARA robot: Used for pick and place work, application of sealant, assembly operations and handling machine tools. It's a robot which has two parallel rotary joints to provide compliance in a plane.
• Articulated robot: Used for assembly operations, diecasting, fettling machines, gas welding, arc welding and spray painting. It's a robot whose arm has at least three rotary joints.
• Parallel robot: One use is a mobile platform handling cockpit flight simulators. It's a robot whose arms have concurrent prismatic or rotary joints.
• Anthropomorphic robot: Shaped in a way that resembles a human hand, i.e with independent fingers and thumbs.

- Robotic arms are typically used in industry. Repetitive autonomous robots perform one task repeatedly based upon predetermined movements and specifically located objects. Start and stop commands are determined by position, acceleration, deceleration, distance, and direction. More complex actions are executed based upon sensor processing. If object orientation or position is unknown, arms are often paired with machine vision and artificial intelligence to identify the object and subsequently control the arm.