THE HISTORY OF ROBOTICS

Robotics as a science is quite young, it tries to create machines that can imitate human behaviour.

Real robots were only possible in the 1950s and 1960s after the invention of transistors and integrated
circuits. The first industrial robot was developed around 1956 by George Devol and Joe Engelberger. It was
called Unimate, short for Universal Automation. It was the first programmable machine, although it was
essentially two boxes connected to an arm, which was able to transfer objects from one location to
another.

In 1961 General Motors installed unimate robots on their assembly lines. At first, they were used to
sequence and stack (=sovrapporre) hot pieces of metal. Gradually they aquired more refined abilities, for
example welding and handling automotive components.

In the meantime, researchers at universities like MIT and Stanford produced their own versions of
articulated arms. The Stanford Arm, built in 1969, was an articulated robotic arm controlled by a computer.
It could make complex movements and execute tasks such as welding.

Throughout the 1970s, the evolution in sensor technology and computer science led to more and more
intelligent, complex and mobile robots. In Japan, researchers developed WAB0T1, the first humanoid
intelligent robot that was able to move and manipulate objects, and it was the first truly walking and talking
robot. Its control system allowed it to walk; it could grip and transport objects with hands, using tactile
sensors. lt had a vision system to measure distances from objects using external receptors, artificial eyes
and ears. And its conversation system allowed it to communicate with a person in Japanese, with an
artificial mouth. This made it the first android.

The SCARA robot was created in 1981 as an efficient, 4-axis robotic arm. The SCARA was soon introduced to
assembly lines especially for pick and place uses, that means picking up parts and placing them in another
location.

All through the 1990s, rapid development continued. Drones were built for military and space missions, like
investigating the surface of Mars. Companies continued the race to build sophisticated humanoid robots
and finally after two decades of research, Honda launched ASIMO, the most advanced result. ASIMO could
run, walk, communicate with humans, recognise its surroundings, faces, voices and posture, and interact
with its environment.

From 2000 to the present, the evolution of robots has been astonishing. Apart from sophisticated
industrial machines, there is now a growing number of robots for domestic and professional use in various
fields. Robots can help us with our household chores, can assist disabled people, assist in surgery,
explorations, hazardous tasks underwater and underground etc.

And artificial representations of humans are also becoming widespread.

ROBOTICS: THE BASIS

The main difference between robots and other automated machinery is that robots are programmed to
carry out tasks without the need for human supervision, but they can also move and manipulate objects, so
they are able to interact with the surrounding environment in a way that is not possible for other
automated machinery.

Robots can be considered multipurpose machines because they are usually designed to perform a wide
range of jobs such as moving materials, parts, tools or specialized devices.
The mechanical structure of robots have some standard components. They are: the movable structure, a
drive mechanism, a sensing technology, a controlling device and a power source.

There are three main drive systems. The electric system includes electric motors to control the movements
of the robot body. The hydraulic and the pneumatic systems have pumps or compressors that drive
pressurised fluids or gases around passages in the robot structure to move pistons and extend the robot
segments.

A sensing technology is essential in a robot because the sensors of a robot monitor internal and external
parameters allowing the machine to interact with the surrounding environment.

The robot makes decisions thanks to its controlling device, which processes information from sensors and
evaluates it with the programmed parameters in order to make decisions to accomplish the program set by
the user.

The appearance of robots may vary depending on their applications, from wheeled self-guided vehicles able
to follow a programmed route to robotic arms used for high-precision surgical operations, and domestic
robots like round and flat automatic vacuum cleaners or lawnmowers for home uses. Most robots are used
in industry and they look like robotic arms.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS

Industrial robots differ from one another in speed, precision, work envelope, load capacity and degrees of
freedom (DOF).

Robots may have prismatic joints, which enable the machine to move its segments along the three axes,
and revolute joints, which enable the machine to rotate its segments around the axes.

All industrial robots usually have in common a base, a column and one or more movable arms to position
the hands or tools of the robot, all connected through joints in different configurations.

The main characteristic of Cartesian robots is that they have prismatic joints, so they can make linear
movements along the three axes.

Both cylindrical and spherical robots have a revolute joint so that their column can rotate around the base,
but spherical robots also have a revolute joint connecting the arm so they can tilt (=inclinare) the arm up
and down.

SCARA robots can cover a wide working area because they are composed of segments connected by
revolute joints that enable wide lateral and longitudinal motion, while the working tool can move up and
down.

Typical industrial applications that robots can perform include pick and place, assembly, arc welding and
spot welding, machine tool loading, drilling and soldering.

THE ROBOTIC ARM

The three articulations/joints of the anthropomorphic robotic arm are the shoulder, that connects the
support structure and the arm, the elbow, that connects arm and forearm, and the wrist, that connects the
forearm to the hand and allows the end-effectors to move.

This configuration is the most flexible category of robotic arms because thanks to its mobility it shows a
greater work envelope, high precision and great flexibility.

End-effectors, or hands, are devices mounted on the wrist. They are essential in robots because they act to
perform a specific task similarly to the human hand.
End-effectors can make three rotary movements: yaw (side to side motion), roll (lateral tilting), and pitch
(tilting up and down).

The two main groups of end-effectors are tools and grippers. Tools are used to perform a specific
machining operation while grippers are used to grasp, hold and move objects.

There are three main types of grippers: mechanical, which are driven by electrical, pneumatic or hydraulic
actuators; grippers based on suction, which have vacuum cups that adhere to the surface of objects;
magnetized grippers, composed by magnets, which generate a magnetic field to attract the objects.

There are so many different types of end-effectors because the choice depends on a lot of factors, for
example: the type of production process, the shape and size of objects to be manipulated, their weight, the
material they are made of, characteristics of the environment where the robot is operating, e.g.
temperature, location of workbenches etc.