EC6003 ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION 3003

UNIT I BASIC CONCEPTS 9

Definition and origin of robotics – different types of robotics – various generations of robots –
degrees of freedom – Asimov’s laws of robotics – dynamic stabilization of robots.

UNIT II POWER SOURCES AND SENSORS 9

Hydraulic, pneumatic and electric drives – determination of HP of motor and gearing ratio
– variable speed arrangements – path determination – micro machines in robotics –
machine vision – ranging – laser – acoustic – magnetic, fiber optic and tactile sensors.

UNIT IIIMANIPULATORS, ACTUATORS AND GRIPPERS 9

Construction of manipulators – manipulator dynamics and force control – electronic and

pneumatic manipulator control circuits – end effectors – U various types of grippers –
design considerations.

UNIT IV KINEMATICS AND PATH PLANNING 9

Solution of inverse kinematics problem – multiple solution jacobian work envelop – hill
climbing techniques – robot programming languages

UNIT V CASE STUDIES 9

Mutiple robots – machine interface – robots in manufacturing and non- manufacturing

applications – robot cell design – selection of robot.

TOTAL : 45 PERIODS

TEXT BOOKS

1. Mikell P. Weiss G.M., Nagel R.N., Odraj N.G., “Industrial Robotics”, Mc Graw-Hill Singapore, 1996.
2. Ghosh, Control in Robotics and Automation: Sensor Based Integration, Allied Publishers, Chennai,
1998.

REFERENCES
3. Deb. S.R.,“Robotics Technology and flexible Automation”, John Wiley, USA 1992.
4. Klafter R.D., Chimielewski T.A., Negin M., “Robotic Engineering – An integrated approach”,
Prentice Hall of India, New Delhi, 1994.
5. Mc Kerrow P.J. “Introduction to Robotics”, Addison Wesley, USA, 1991.
6. Issac Asimov “Robot”, Ballantine Books, New York, 1986.
7. Barry Leatham - Jones, "Elements of industrial Robotics" PITMAN Publishing, 1987.
8. Mikell P.Groover, Mitchell Weiss, Roger N.Nagel Nicholas G.Odrey, "Industrial Robotics
Technology, Programming and Applications ", McGraw Hill Book Company 1986.
9. Fu K.S. Gonzaleaz R.C. and Lee C.S.G., "Robotics Control Sensing, Vision and Intelligence" ,
McGraw Hill International Editions, 1987.
 UNIT I BASIC CONCEPTS

TWO MARKS

1. Define a Robot?
RIA defines a robot as a “programmable, multifunction manipulator designed to
Move materials, parts, tools or special devices through variable programmed
motions for the performance of the variety of task”.

2. What is mean by automation?

Automation is a technology that is concerned with the use of electronic
mechanical and computer based system in the operation control and production.

3. What is a robot?
Robot is an
 Electro-mechanical device
 Perform various task
 May be human controlled or automated.
 It finds its uses in all aspects of our life

4. What are the rules of robot?

 Do not harm being
 Obey human being
 Protects itself from harm.

5. Why a robot used?

a. To reduce production cost
 Fast
 Accurate
 Difficulties in human nature
b. To avoid 3-D jobs
 Dirty
 Dangerous
 Difficult

6. What is meant by robot anatomy?

Robot anatomy means study of structure of robot. Manipulator is constructed of a
series of joints & links. A joint provides relative motion between the input link and
the output link. Each joint provides the robot with one degree of freedom.

7. Name the commonly used robot configuration system?

The commonly used robot configuration systems are
0 Cartesian coordinate system
 Cylindrical coordinate system
 Polar or spherical coordinate system
0 Revolute coordinate system
8. What are the types of automation?
 Fixed automation
 Programmable automation
 Flexible automation

9. Write are the Benefits of industrial automation?

 Improved product quality
 Improved safety
 Increased manufacturing flexibility
 Improved operation reliability
 Improved decision making

10. List the different types of robots?

 Robotic Manipulator
 Wheeled Mobile Robots
 Legged Robots
 Underwater Robots
 Flying Robots
 Robot Vision
 Artificial Intelligence
 Industrial Automation

11. Write Asimov’s laws of robotics?

Three rules written by science fiction author Isaac Asimov and later expanded
upon. These rules are built in to almost all positronic robots appearing in his fiction
and cannot be bypassed. The rules are introduced in his 1942 short story RUNAROUND
although they were foreshadowed in a few earlier stories.
The Three Laws of Robotics are as follows:
I. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a
human being to come to harm.
AI. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except
where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
BI. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does
not conflict with the First or Second Law.

12. What is mean by workspace?

The space in which the end point of the robot arm is capable of operating is called
as a workspace in other words reachabillity of robot arm is known as workspace.

13. What is mean by work volume?

The volume of the space swept by the robot arm is called work volume

14. What is meant by work envelop?

The work envelop is described by the surface of the workspace.

15. What is meant by a accuracy of robot?

The robot’s ability to reach a reference point within the robot’s full work volume
 is known as accuracy of robot.

16. What is meant by pay load capacity of robot?

The maximum load which can be carried by the manipulator at low or normal speed

17. What is meant by precision of robot?

It is the smallest increment of motion for which the robot can be controlled

18. What is repeatability of robot?

Repeatability refers to robot’s ability to return to the programmed point when it
is commanded to do so.

19. What is meant by quality of robot?

A robot is said to be high quality when the precision and accuracy is more

20. Classify the motion control of Robot arm?

 Limited sequence control
 Point to point control
 Continuous path control
 Intelligent control

21. What are the Subsystems of industrial robot?

 Actuators
 Transmission systems
 Power supplies & power storage system
 Sensors
 Microprocessors & controllers
 Algorithms & softwares (higher level & lower level)

22. What is meant Degrees Of Freedom?

It is described as one of the variables required to define the motion of a body
in space. Each joint in a robotic system gives the robot one degree of freedom.

23. How much encoder need for measure 45 degree of freedom?

45 encoders

24. What are the Advantages and disadvantages of robot?

Advantages
 Greater flexibility, reprogrammability, adjustable kinematics dexterity
 Greater response time to inputs than humans
 Improved product quality
 Maximize capital intensive equipment in multiple work shifts.

Disadvantages
 Replacement of human labour
 More unemployment
 Significant retraining costs for both unemployed and users of
new technology
  Advertising technology does not always disclose some of the
hidden disadvantages

25. What are the limitations of robot?

Assembly dexterity does not match that of human beings, particularly where
eye-hand coordination required.
 Payload to robot weight ratio is poor, often less than 5%
 Robot structural configurations often constrain joint limits and thus the
work volume
 Work volume can be constrained even further when parts of substantial
size are picked up when tooling/sensors added to the robot
 The robot repeatability and/or accuracy can constrain the range of
potential application

UNIT II POWER SOURCES AND SENSORS

TWO MARKS

1. Name the important parts of harmonic drive?

The important parts of harmonic drive are
 Rigid circular spline with internal teeth
 Flex spline with external teeth
 Elliptical wave generation

2. State the advantages and limitation of a hydraulic drive?

Advantages:
 It gives greater speed and strength
 It gives highest power to weight ratio
 It is used for heavy pay loads
 It can be used for large working envelope
 It is safe and reliable to work in wet and dirty conditions
 It can be used in hazardous environment.
Disadvantages
 It occupies more space
 Maintenance should be done regularly

3. What are the types of hydraulic actuator?

The types of hydraulic actuators are
 Linear hydraulic actuator
I. Single acting cylinder II.
Double acting cylinder
III. Double acting double rod cylinder
 Hydraulic rotary
actuator I. Gear motor
II. Vane motor III.
Piston motor
4. What are the types of encoder?
I. Linear encoder
II. Rotary encoder
 Absolute encoder
 Incremental encoder
5. What is frame grabber?
It is hardware device used to capture and store the digital image.

6. What is the common imaging device used for robot vision system?
Block and White vidicon camera, charge coupled devices, solid state camera,
charge injection device.

7. What is pixel?
Picture elements are also known as pixels.

8. What is the frame of the vision data?

The digital image of the camera is called frame of the vision data

9. What is segmentation?
Segmentation is the method to group area of an image having similar
characteristics or features into distinct entities representing part of the image.

10. What is thresholding?

Thresholding is a binary conversion technique in which each pixel is converted
into a binary value either black or white.

11. What is region growing?

Region growing is collection of segmentation techniques in which pixels
are grouped in regions called grid elements based on attribute similarities

12. What are the functions of machine vision system?

 Sensing and digitizing image data
 Image processing and analysis
 Application

13. What is application of machine vision system?

 Inspection
 Identification
 Visual servoing and navigation

14. What is sensor?

A sensor is an electrical device that transfers a physical phenomenon into an
electrical signal. Sensors in robotics are used for both the internal feedback control
and external interaction with the outside environment

15. What is transducer?

Transducer is a device which converts the one form of the energy into another
form without changing the information content.
16. What are the basic classifications of sensors?
 Tactile sensors
 Proximity sensors
 Range sensors
 Voice sensors etc

17. What are the desirable features of sensors?

1. Good Accuracy, 2. High Precision, 3. Wide operating range, 4. Instant speed
of response, 5. Good Repealibility, 6. Low cost,
and easy in operation

18. What is the tactile sensor?

Tactile sensor is a device which indicates the contact between themselves
and some other solid objects.

19. List the different type of tactile sensor?

 Digital(Touch) sensor
 Analogue (force) sensor

20. What is touch sensor?

Sensor which senses the presence or absence of the object by having
physical contact between the object

21. List the component of the force wrist?

 Metallic frame
 Bracket for tool mounting
 Strain gauges

22. What is a tactile array sensor?

Tactile array sensor is a special type of force sensor composed of a matrix of
force sensing elements.

23. What is the proximity sensor?

Sensor which senses the presence or absence of the object without having
physical contact between the object

24. What are the classifications of a proximity sensor?

 Inductive sensor
 Capacitive sensor
 Ultrasonic sensor
 Magnetic sensor

25. What is a range sensor?

Sensor which sense the range of the object

26. What is a voice sensor?

It is advanced sensor system used to communicate commands or information
orally to robot.
27. What is a vision sensor?
It is a advanced sensor system used in conjunction with pattern reorganization
and other technique to view and interpret event occurring in the robot work space.

28. What is potentiometer?

Potentiometer is an electrical meter to measure the unknown voltage.

29. What is inspection?

It is quality control operation in which the checking of part assembly or products
for conformance to certain criteria is specifying by the design engineering department.

30. What is meant by quantisation?

Each sampled discrete time voltage level is assigned to a finite no of

amplitude levels. These amplitude levels correspond to gray scale used in the
system. The predefined amplitude levels are characteristic to a particular A to D
converter and consist of discrete values of voltage levels is defined by
Number of quantisation levels = 2 power n
Where n is the no of bits of the A/D converter

31. What is meant by encoding?

Encoding is defined as the representation of an amplitude level by a binary
digit sequence.

32. What is meant by sampling?

The given analog signal is sampled periodically to obtained a series of
discrete signals.

33. What are the basic lighting devices?

 Diffuse surface device
 Condenser projectors
 Flood or spot projectors
 Collimator
 Imagers

34. What are the phases of A/D conversion?

 Sampling
 Quantization
 Encoding

35. What are the various techniques in image processing & analysis?
 Image data reduction
 Segmentation
 Feature extraction
 Object recognition

36. What is meant by image data reduction?

The objective of image data reduction is to reduce the volume of the data
37. What are the schemes involved in image data reduction?
 Digital conversion
 Windowing

38. What is meant by windowing?

Windowing involves using only a portion of the total image stored in the
frame buffer for image processing and analysis this portion is called window.

39. What is by digital conversion?

Digital conversion reduces the no of gray levels used by the machine vision system.

40. What is meant by segmentation?

The object of segmentation is to group areas of an image having similar
characteristics or features into distinct entities representing parts of the image

41. What are the techniques involved in segmentation?

 Thresholding
 Region growing
 Edge detecting

42. What is meant by thersholding?

Thresholding is the binary conversion technique in which each pixel is
converted into a binary value.

43. What is meant by region growing?

Region growing is a collection of segmentation techniques in which each pixels
are grouped in regions called grid elements.

44. What is meant by edge detection?

Edge detection considering the intensity charge that occurs in the pixels at
the boundary or edge of the part

45. What is meant by feature extraction?

Feature extraction is usually accomplished by means of features that
uniquely characterize the object

46. What are the techniques used in object recognition?

 Template matching technique
 Structural technique

47. What is meant by template matching technique?

Template matching techniques are subsets of the motor general statistical
pattern recognition technique

48. What is meant by structural technique?

Structural techniques of pattern recognition consider relationship between
the features or edges of an object.
49. What are the electrical Drives in Manipulators
The term servo derived from phrase “to serve”, has meaning that “the system
that can be controlled.” The electrical actuators that can be controlled are DC
servomotors, AC servo motors and stepper motors

50. Classified different types of stepper motor?

 Variable reluctance motors ( soft steel rotor)
 Permanent Magnet (PM) stepper motor
 Hybrid Stepper Motor

UNIT III MANIPULATORS, ACTUATORS AND GRIPPERS

TWO MARKS

1. Define End effector:

End effector is a device that is attached to the end of the wrist arm to
perform specific task.

2. What is meant by manipulator?

Manipulator is a machine has a function similar to those of the human upper
limbs and moves an object spatially from one location to another.

3. Give some example of robot End effector:

 Gripper
 Tools
 Welding equipment’s
 End of arm tooling(EOAT)

4. What is meant by gripper?

Gripper is a End effector which can hold or grasp the object

5. What are the types of gripper?

 Magnetic gripper
 Mechanical gripper
 Hooking gripper
 Vacuum gripper

6. What is a stripping device?

A device used to remove workspace from the magnetic gripper

7. What are the types of mechanism gripper?

 Linkage actuation gripper
 Gear and rack actuation gripper
 Cam actuation gripper
 Screw actuation gripper
8. What are the advantages and disadvantages of magnetic gripper?
Advantages
 Pickup time very fast
 Variation in part size can be tolerated. The gripper do not have to
be designed for one particular work part
 They have ability to handle metal parts with holes
 They require only one surface for gripping
Disadvantages
 Residual magnetism
 Side slippage
 More than one sheet will be lifted by magnet from a stack

9. Write different types of magnetic gripper?

There are two of magnetic gripper
 Electromagnetic gripper
 Permanent magnet gripper

10. What is Adhesive gripper?

Adhesive gripper in which an adhesive substance performs the grasping action
for handling fabrics and other lightweight material are called adhesive gripper

11. Limitation of Adhesive gripper?

 Adhesive substance losses his tackiness on repeated usage
 Reliability is diminished with successive operations

12. List the advantages and features of suction cup gripper?

 Require only one surface of the part for grasping
 Applies uniform pressure distribution on the surface of the part
 Relatively a lightweight gripper
 Applicable to a variety of different material.

13. Give some examples of tool as robot End effector

 Shop welding tools
 Arc welding tools
 Spray painting nozzle
 Water jet cutting tool

14. What is transfer function?

The transfer function relates the Laplace transformation of the system output to
the Laplace transformation of the system input.

15. What is controller?

Controller is information processing device whose input are both desired and
measurement position, velocity (or) other pertinent variables in a process and
whose outputs are drive signals to a motor (or) actuators.

16. Write control techniques of robot?

All industrial robots are either servo or non-servo controlled
  Non servo (open loop) control
 Servo (closed loop) control

17. What is actuator?

 They convert the electrical energy into meaningful mechanical work
 Mechanical output can be rotational or linear
 Motor provide motion
 Electromagnets provide linear motion

18. What is summing junction

Summing junctions may have any number of arrows entering but only one leaving

19. What is a take point?

Take of point permit signals and variables to be shared among more than a
single component

20. What is a functional block?

Function block represents one of the components of the system and contains
the transfer function for the component.

21. What is a single arrow?

Single arrow indicates the direction of variables and signals in the diagram.

22. Name some feedback device used in Robotics?

 Potentiometer
 Resolver
 Encoder

23. List the various actuating mechanism used in mechanical gripper?

 Linkage actuation gripper
 Gear and rack actuation gripper
 Cam actuation gripper
 Screw actuation gripper

24. Which type of robot is commonly used for pick and place operation?
Cylindrical coordinate robot is commonly used for pick and place operation

25. What do you meant by material transfer application?

Material transfer application are defined as operation in which the primary
objective is move a part from one location to another location

26. What is pick and place operation?

Pick and place operation involved tasks in which the robot picks the part at
one location and move it another location

27. What is meant by PID control?

The PID controller produces an output signal consisting of three terms-one
proportional to error signal, another one proportional to integral of error signal and
 the third one proportional to derivative of error signal.

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UNIT IV KINEMATICS AND PATH PLANNING
TWO MARKS

1. What is kinematics?
Kinematics will enable us to calculate what each joint variable must be if we
desire the hand to be located at a particular point and have a particular orientation.

2. Define statics.
Statics deals with force which acts on the various parts which are assumed to
be rest.

3. What is link?
A link may be defined as a member (or) a combination of member of
mechanism connecting other members and having motion to them.
Link of machine may transfer both power and motion

4. What is forward kinematics?

It is a scheme to determine joint angle by robot knowing its position in the
world coordinate system

5. What is reverse kinematics?

It is a scheme to determine the position of the robot in the world coordinate
system by knowing the joint angles and the link parameter of the robot.

6. Define manipulator kinematics.

Manipulator kinematics is connected with the position and orindation of the
robot’s end of arm or end effector attached to it as a function of time but without
regard for the effects of force (or) mass.

7. Write about transformation.

 Transformation of frames introduced to make modelling the relocation
of object easier.
 An object is described with respect to a frame located in the object, and
this frame is reloaded with transformation.

8. Explain kinematic model.

 Before a robot can move its hand to an object must be located relative to
it. There is currently no simple method for measuring the location of the
robot hand.
 Most robot calculated the position of their hand using kinematic model
of their arm.

9. Write steps to drive kinematics model?

1) Assign D-H coordination frame
2) Find link parameter
3) Transformation matrices of adjacent joints
 4) Calculate kinematic matrix
5) When necessary, Euler angle representation

10. Give a method to salve forward kinematic problems?

Denavid-Hartenberg conversion

11. Give a method to salve inverse kinematic problems?

 Closed form (or) Analytical solutions
 numerical solutions

12. What is the principle of vacuum cup?

The principle used in vacuum pump and venture

13. What are the methods of robot programming?

 Lead through methods
 Texual robot languages
 Mechanical programming

14. What are ways of accomplishing lead through programming?

 Power lead through
 Manual lead through

15. What is teach pendent?

The teach pendant is usually a small handheld control box with combinations
of toggle switches, dials and buttons to regulate the robot’s physical movements
and program capabilities.

16. What are the methods of teaching?

 Joint movement
 X-Y-Z coordinate motions
 Tool coordinate motion

17. What are the basic mechanisms of legged robot?
 Slider
 Liver

18. What are the benefits that can be obtained with a legged robot?
 Better mobility
 Better stability on the platform
 Better energy efficiency
 Smaller impact on the ground

19. What is APAS?

Adaptable programmable system was developed by national science foundation
& westing house Electric Corporation. The purpose was to advance the state of the
art in automated batch assembly.

20. Write the different type of kinematics analysis of mechanism?

 Graphical Position Analysis Method
 Algebraic Position Analysis of Linkages
  Complex Algebra Method for Position Analysis

21. When a robot singularity will occurs?

A robot singularity occurs when robot axes are redundant (more axes then
necessary to cause the same motion) or when the robot is in certain configurations that
require extremely high joint rates to move at some nominal speed in Cartesian space

22. Write the two modes of lead through programming?

 Teach mode
 Run mode
23. Write end effector command
 OPEN
 CLOSE
 OPEN I
 CLOSED I

24. List out basic modes of operation in robot language structure.

The three basic modes of operations are
 Monitor mode
 Run mode
 Edit mode

25. State that robot language element.

 Constant, variables
 Motion command
 End effector and sensor command
 Computation and operations.

UNIT V CASE STUDIES

TWO MARKS

1. What is meant by SCARA?

SCARA is a robot – This also has a cylindrical work space. RRP main body.
Such robots were used to assemble the SONY Walkman.

2. Write some industrial application of

robot? a). Material handling application
 Material transfer application
 Machine loading/unloading
application b). Processing application
 Welding
 Painting
 Assembly
 Inspection

3. What are the benefits of industrial robot?

Industrial robot offers the following benefits
 Increase productivity
  Improve product quality
 More consistent product quality
 Reduce scrap and waste
 Reduce reworking costs
 Reduce raw goods inventory
 Direct labour cost saving
 Saving in overhead cost such as lighting, heating and cooling

4. What is palletizing?
Palletizing is the operation in which the robot picks cartons from conveyor
and places them on to a pallet

5. What is depalletizing?
Depalletizing operation is the reverse of palletizing operation in which the robot
removes cartons from the pallet and places them on to conveyor or other location

6. What are the different types of material handling operation?

 Picking and placing
 Palletizing and depalletizing
 Machine loading and unloading
 Parts feeding , storage and retrival
 Sorting of the parts from conveyors

7. What are the gantry robots?

If the robots are mounted over head they are called gentry robots
8. How the workpieces are fed to the robot by some mechanical feeding device?
The workpieces are fed to the robot by some mechanical feeding device or
conveyor in a known location and orientation

9. What is the interpretation of manufacturing system?

Manufacturing system is defined as the system which converts the input into
a ` suitable output

10. What are the technologies used in manufacturing system?

 Computer aided design/computer aided manufacturing
 FMS
 CIM
 AGILE
 LEAN

11. Define the term “CIM”

The term CIM denotes the use of computer pervasive use of computer system
to design the product, plan the product, control the operations and perform the
various business related function

12. Write down some elements of CIM?

LAN, Database, FEM, QC, CNC, TOOL DESIGN, MARKETING,
COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN, ANALYSIS, ROBOT SCHEDULING
13. What are parts feeding, storage and retrieval process?
 Parts feeding means feeding the part to the machine
 Storage means storing different types of object in the pallet
 Retrieval is the process of taking the object from the pallet

14. What is pallet?

Pallet is a storage area which consists of a number of cells to store
workpiece of different size

15. Differentiate palletizing and depalletizing

Palletizing Depallatizing

a The pickup point is

. constant a. The pickup point is
different

b b. The delivery point is

. The delivery point is constant
different

16. Application of robot in loading and unloading?

 Die casting
 Injection moulding
 Forming, stamping
 Trimming process

17. What is assembly?

 The term assembly is defined to mean the fitting of two or more
discrete parts to form a new subassembly

18. Defined part presentation.

In order to perform an assembly task the part that is to be assembled must
be presented to robot this is part presentation

19. Explain bowl feeders?

Bowl feeders are devices used for feeding and orienting small parts in
automated assembly operations. They are made two main components
 The bowl
 The vibrating base

20. What are the types of assembly operation?

 Parts mating
 Parts joining

21. Basic configuration of assembly systems?

 A single workstation assembly
 A series of work station assembly
  Combination of both

22. Explain designing for robot assembly.

 Certain assembly tasks are very difficult for the robot to perform than others.
If possible this difficulty factor should be consider in the design of product
 Another consideration in the design of an assembly is the direction in
which the parts are to be added in the assembly operation