The elements of a robot system fall roughly into four

categories:

1. The manipulator, including its internal or partcipative

sensors;
2. the end-effector, or end-of-arm tooling;
3. external sensors and effectors, such as vision systems
and part feeders, and;
4. the controller.

The breadth of engineering disciplines encompassed

forces us to restrict our attention only to the design of
the manipulator itself.
 THE DESIGN ON TASK REQUIREMENTS

• Number of Degrees of Freedom

• Workspace
• Load Capacity
• Speed
• Repeatability and Accuracy
 KINEMATIC CONFIGURATION

• Cartesian manipulator
• Articulated manipulator
• SCARA
• Spherical
• Cylindrical manipulators
• Parallel robots
Cartesian Robots
Cartesian robots, which are also called linear robots or
gantry robots, are industrial robots that work on three
linear axes that use the Cartesian Coordinate system (X, Y,
and Z), meaning they move in straight lines on 3-axis (up
and down, in and out, and side to side).

Cartesian robots are a popular choice due to being highly

flexible in their configurations, giving users the ability to
adjust the robot’s speed, precision, stroke length, and size.

Cartesian Robots are one of the most commonly used robot

types for industrial applications and are often used for CNC
machines and 3D printing.
Articulated Robots
Articulated Robots mechanical movement and
configuration closely resembles a human arm. The arm is
mounted to a base with a twisting joint. The arm itself can
feature anywhere from two rotary joints up to ten rotary
joints which act as axes, with each additional joint or axis
allowing for a greater degree of motion.

Most Articulated Robots utilize four or six-axis. Typical

applications for Articulated Robots are assembly, arc
welding, material handling, machine tending, and
packaging.
SCARA Robots

SCARA is an acronym that stands for Selective Compliance

Assembly Robot Arm or Selective Compliance Articulated
Robot Arm. SCARA Robots function on 3-axis (X, Y, and Z),
and have a rotary motion as well.

SCARA Robots excel in lateral movements and are

commonly faster moving and have easier integration than
Cartesian Robots. Typically, SCARA robots are used for
assembly and palletizing, as well as bio-med application.
Polar Robots

Polar Robots, or spherical robots, have an arm with two

rotary joints and one linear joint connected to a base with a
twisting joint. The axes of the robot work together to form a
polar coordinate, which allows the robot to have a spherical
work envelope.

Polar Robots are credited as one of the first types of

industrial robots to ever be developed. Polar robots are
commonly used for die casting, injection molding, welding,
and material handling.
Cylindrical Robots

Cylindrical Robots have a rotary joint at the base and a

prismatic joint to connect the links. The robots have a
cylindrical-shaped work envelop, which is achieved with
rotating shaft and an extendable arm that moves in a
vertical and sliding motion.

Cylindrical Robots are often used in tight workspaces for

simple assembly, machine tending, or coating applications
due to their compact design.
Delta Robots

Delta Robots, or parallel robots, possess three arms

connected to a single base, which is mounted above the
workspace. Delta Robots work in a dome-shape and can
move both delicately and precisely at high speeds due to
each joint of the end effector being directly controlled by
all three arms.

Delta Robots are often used for fast pick and place
applications in the food, pharmaceutical, and electronic
industries.
ACTUATION SCHEMES

Once the general kinematic structure of a manipulator has

been chosen, the next most important matter of concern
is the actuation of the joints.

Typically, the actuator, reduction, and transmission are

closely coupled and must be designed together.

An actuator is a device which causes something to

happen. This could be a robot movement, which is often
achieved using motors: An actuator is needed to make the
robots wheels turn. Or the joints of a robot arm to rotate.
The most straightforward choice of actuator location is
at or near the joint it drives. If the actuator can produce
enough torque or force, its output can attach directly to
the joint. This arrangement, known as a direct-drive
configuration.
Many actuators are best suited to relatively high speeds
and low torques and therefore require a speed-reduction
system.

Furthermore, actuators tend to be rather heavy. If they

can be located remotely from the joint and toward the
base of the manipulator, the overall inertia of the
manipulator can be reduced considerably.

This, in turn, reduces the size needed for the actuators.

To realize these benefits, a transmission system is
needed to transfer the motion from the actuator to the
joint.
The optimal distribution of reduction stages throughout
the transmission will depend ultimately on the flexibility
of the transmission, the weight of the reduction system,
the friction associated with the reduction system, and
the ease of incorporating these components into the
overall manipulator design.

Reduction and transmission systems

 Actuators

An actuator is a device that converts energy into physical

motion, and the vast majority of actuators produce rotary
or linear motion. Linear actuators are defined by force,
rotary actuators are defined by torque.
There are many types of actuators, but the three most
common types of actuators are hydraulic, pneumatic, and
electric.

Hydraulic actuators use compressed oil to cause motion.

They are most commonly used in heavy machinery, and
they can generate very high force.

Pneumatic actuators are very similar to hydraulic

actuators. Instead of using compressed oil to cause
motion, they use compressed air.

Electric actuators use an electric current and magnets.

 Hydraulic actuators

Hydraulic actuator definition is, a device that is used to change the

fluid’s pressure energy into mechanical is known as a hydraulic
actuator. The hydraulic actuator includes a cylinder or a fluid motor
that works through hydraulic power for mechanical operation. The
mechanical motion provides an output in the form of rotary, linear
otherwise oscillatory motion. When liquids are almost unfeasible to
compress, then a hydraulic actuator uses a large force.
 Pneumatic actuators

Pneumatic actuators are devices that convert the energy of

compressed air or gas into a mechanical motion that regulates one or
more final control elements. The motion of a pneumatic actuator may
be linear or rotary depending on the device’s design. Prototypical
actuators use an external compressive force, such as compressed air
or gas, to move a piston along the inside of a hollow cylinder and
build pressure.
 Electric actuators

Electric actuators are devices capable of creating motion of a load, or

an action that requires a force like clamping, making use of an electric
motor to create the force that is necessary. As the spindle or rotor
rotates, rotary motion is created by an electric motor. In the structure
of an electrical actuator, there is a helical screw to which the motor
spindle is coupled via the drive shaft. This will rotate in a ball screw
nut.
STIFFNESS AND DEFLECTIONS
An important goal for the design of most manipulators is
overall stiffness of the structure and the drive system. Stiff
systems provide two main benefits.

First, because typical manipulators do not have sensors to

measure the tool frame location directly, it is calculated by
using the forward kinematics based on sensed joint
positions. For an accurate calculation, the links cannot sag
under gravity or other loads. In other words, we wish our
Denavit—Hartenberg description of the linkages to remain
fixed under various loading conditions.
Second, flexibilities in the structure or drive train will lead
to resonances, which have an undesirable effect on
manipulator performance. In this section, we consider
issues of stiffness and the resulting deflections under loads.
• Flexible elements in parallel and in series
• Shafts
• Gears
• Belts
• Links
POSITION SENSING
Virtually all manipulators are servo-controlled
mechanisms—that is, the force or torque command
to an actuator is based on the error between the
sensed position of the joint and the desired position.
This requires that each joint have some sort of
position-sensing device.
• Rotary optical encoder
• Resolvers
• Potentiometers
• Tachometers
Optical encoders operate by counting scale lines with the
use of a light source and a photodetector. They usually
transform the light distribution into two sinusoidal electrical
signals that are used to determine the relative position
between a scanning head and a linear scale.
A resolver outputs signal by energizing the input phase of the resolver
with an AC voltage (VAC) to induce voltage into each of the output
windings. The resolver amplitude modulates the VAC input in
proportion to the Sine and the Cosine of the angle of mechanical
rotation.
A potentiometer is a type of position sensor. They are used
to measure displacement in any direction. Linear
potentiometers linearly measure displacement and rotary
potentiometers measure rotational displacement.
Tachometer is a device which is used to measure rotational
speed of a disk or a shaft of motors or other machines.
These devices can either be inbuilt in to some equipment
which contains moving parts or it can be a free hand held
device which can be used to measure rotational speed in
different kinds of equipment. Tachometer is also referred to
as revolution counter.
FORCE SENSING
A variety of devices have been designed to measure forces
of contact between a manipulator's end-effector and the
environment that it touches. Most such sensors make use
of sensing elements called strain gauges, of either the
semiconductor or the metal-foil variety. These strain gauges
are bonded to a metal structure and produce an output
proportional to the strain in the metal.
There are three places where such sensors are usually
placed on a manipulator:

1. At the joint actuators.

These sensors measure the torque or force output of the

actuator/reduction itself. These are useful for some control
schemes, but usually do not provide good sensing of
contact between the end-effector and the environment.
2. Between the end-effector and last joint of the
manipulator.

These sensors are usually referred to as wrist sensors. They

are mechanical structures instrumented with strain gauges,
which can measure the forces and torques acting on the
end-effector. Typically, these sensors are capable of
measuring from three to six components of the
force/torque vector acting on the end effector.
3. At the "fingertips" of the end-effector.

Usually, these force-sensing fingers have built-in strain

gauges to measure from one to four components of force
acting at each fingertip.