INTRODUCTION

“Robotics, computer-controlled machine that is programmed to move, manipulates objects, and

accomplishes work while interacting with its environment. Robots are able to perform repetitive

tasks more quickly, cheaply, and accurately than humans. The term robot originates from the

Czech word robota, meaning “compulsory labor.” It was first used in the 1921 play R.U.R.

(Rossum's Universal Robots) by the Czech novelist and playwright Karel Capek. The word robot

has been used since to refer to a machine that performs work to assist people or work that

humans find difficult or undesirable.”

HISTORY

In the early 1800’s mechanical puppets were first built in Europe, just for entertainment value.

And these were called robots since there parts were driven by linkage and cams and controlled

by rotating drum selectors. In 1801 Joseph Maria Jacquard made the next great change and

invented the automatic draw loom. The draw loom would punch cards and was used to control

the lifting of thread in fabric factories. This was the first to be able to store a program and control

a machine. After that there were many small changes in robotics but we were slowly moving

forward. 

The first industrial robots were Animates developed by George Devol and Joe Engelberger in the

late 50’s and early 60’s. The first patents we by Devol but Engelberger formed Animation which

was the first market robots. So Engelberger has been called the “father of robotics”.  For a while

the economic viability of these robots proved disastrous and thing slowed down for robotics. But
the industry recovered and by the mid-80’s robotics was back on track.  

George Devol Jr, in 1954 developed the multijointed artificial arm which lead to the modern

robots. But mechanical engineer Victor Scheinman, developed the truly flexible arm know as the

Programmable Universal Manipulation Arm (PUMA).

HOW ROBOTS WORK

“The inspiration for the design of a robot manipulator is the human arm, but with some

differences. For example, a robot arm can extend by telescoping—that is, by sliding cylindrical

sections one over another to lengthen the arm. Robot arms also can be constructed so that they

bend like an elephant trunk. Grippers, or end effectors, are designed to mimic the function and

structure of the human hand. Many robots are equipped with special purpose grippers to grasp

particular devices such as a rack of test tubes or an arc-welder.  The joints of a robotic arm are

usually driven by electric motors. In most robots, the gripper is moved from one position to

another, changing its orientation. A computer calculates the joint angles needed to move the

gripper to the desired position in a process known as inverse kinematics.  Some multi-jointed

arms are equipped with servo, or feedback, controllers that receive input from a computer. Each

joint in the arm has a device to measure its angle and send that value to the controller. If the

actual angle of the arm does not equal the computed angle for the desired position, the servo

controller moves the joint until the arm's angle matches the computed angle. Controllers and

associated computers also must process sensor information collected from cameras that locate

objects to be grasped, or they must touch sensors on grippers that regulate the grasping force.
Any robot designed to move in an unstructured or unknown environment will require multiple

sensors and controls, such as ultrasonic or infrared sensors, to avoid obstacles. Robots, such as

the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) planetary rovers, require a

multitude of sensors and powerful onboard computers to process the complex information that

allows them mobility. This is particularly true for robots designed to work in close proximity

with human beings, such as robots that assist persons with disabilities and robots that deliver

meals in a hospital. Safety must be integral to the design of human service robots.”

USES FOR ROBOTS

700,000 robots were in the industrial world in 1995 and over 500,000 we used in Japan.  About

120,000 in Western Europe and 60,000 in the United States and many were doing tasks to

dangerous or unpleasant for humans.  Some of the hazardous jobs are handling material such a

blood or urine samples, searching building for fugitives and deep water search. And even some

jobs that are repetitive and these can be run 24hrs a day without getting tired.  General Motors

Corporation uses these robots for spot welding, painting, machine loading, parts transfer, and

assembly. Assembly lines are the fastest growing because  of higher precision and lower cost for

labor.

IMPACT OF ROBOTS

Robotics produces higher quality and lower cost to the manufacturing industry. But this can

cause loss to the unskilled jobs but create new jobs for skilled people in software and sensor

development. These machines will have to be maintained and people will have to be trained on

there repair. So you could loss unskilled jobs and maybe train these same people in skilled and
the overall loss may not be that bad.

Robotics on the production line takes away many job that were done by humans

And this is less cost to the company but lost jobs for paid labor workers.

FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGIES

“Perhaps the most dramatic changes in future robots will arise from their increasing ability to

reason. The field of artificial intelligence is moving rapidly from university laboratories to

practical application in industry, and machines are being developed that can perform cognitive

tasks, such as strategic planning and learning from experience. Increasingly, diagnosis of failures

in aircraft or satellites, the management of a battlefield, or the control of a large factory will be

performed by intelligent computers.”

Robotics, automation and control play an important role in manufacturing in different industries.

The art of robotics and intelligent control has been transferred into the automated systems

development. The most important field in controls and robotics is the working of a system with

maximum accuracy and minimum errors and if an error occurs the system should be capable of

taking a significant action against it.

In manufacturing lines are usually a number of inter related processes which should coherently

work efficiently to result in an efficient production. However if there is bottleneck at any stage
the whole production line should run at a lower efficiency and capacity. Improvement may need

to be made using lean manufacturing regarding some of the manufacturing aspects but these are

small incremental changes and do not play any vital role to enhance the production efficiency

and capacity.

This article is describing a industry collaborative project to investigate a manufacturing

production line and identify the bottlenecks. The goal was to design and develop a robotic or

automated system to overcome the bottleneck process problems in order to increase the

manufacturing efficiency to reach the desired production capacity. Base on the investigation

carried out by the company involved, available automated systems do not cover the whole

production line and the custom made are extremely expensive. Therefore the idea was to come

up with a solution which was within a reasonable budget for the company.

An automated transportation and manipulation flexible robotic system for handling, banding,

snapping, and sorting of general purpose labels would improve substantially overall production

efficiency of the concerned company where a large scale investment in new equipment could not

be made. The goal was to almost double the production by automating a serious bottleneck in the

manufacturing line. A typical range of different size and shape labels to demonstrate the

handling complexity of the required robotic system.