Industrial robot. Robots in production. Automatic robots

Today these devices are especially in demand in the national economy. The industrial robot, little like its prototype in K.Chapek's book "The Rise of Robots", does not feed revolutionary ideas at all. On the contrary, it conscientiously performs, with great accuracy, both the main production processes (assembly, welding, painting), and auxiliary (loading-unloading, fixing the product during manufacture, moving).

The use of such "smart" machines contributes to the effective solution of three major production problems:

• Increase in labor productivity;
• Improvement of working conditions for people;
• Optimization of the use of human resources.

Industrial robots are the brainchild of large-scale production

Robots in production massively spread in the late XX century due to a significant increase in industrial production. Large series of products have necessitated the intensity and quality of such work, the fulfillment of which exceeds objective human capabilities. Instead of employing many thousands of skilled workers, numerous highly efficient automatic lines operate in modern technological plants, operating in a continuous or continuous cycle.

Leaders in the development of such technologies, declaring the widespread use of industrial robots, are Japan, the United States, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland. The modern industrial robots manufactured in the above-mentioned countries are divided into two large groups. Their types are determined by their belonging to two fundamentally different ways of managing:

• Automatic manipulators;
• Devices remotely controlled by humans.

What are they used for?

The need for their creation began to be talked about at the beginning of the 20th century. However, at that time, there was still no elemental base for the implementation of the plan. Today, following the dictates of the times, robots are used in most of the most technologically advanced industries.

Unfortunately, the re-equipment of entire industries with such "smart" machines is hampered by a deficit of investment. Although the benefits from their use clearly exceed the initial cash costs, because they allow you to talk not only and not so much about automation, but about profound changes in production and labor.

The use of industrial robots made it possible to perform more efficiently and in an unbearable manner in terms of labor and accuracy: loading / unloading, stacking, sorting, orientation of parts; Moving blanks from one robot to another, and finished products - to the warehouse; Spot welding and welding of seams; Assembly of mechanical and electronic parts; Cable laying; Cutting of blanks along a complex contour.

Manipulator as a component of industrial robot

Functionally, this "smart" machine consists of a reprogrammable automatic control system (ACS) and a working body (a traveling system and a mechanical manipulator). If the ACS is usually compact enough, visually hidden and does not immediately strike the eye, the working body is so characteristic that the industrial robot is often referred to as the robot manipulator.

By definition, a manipulator is a device that moves in the space of working surfaces and objects of labor. These devices consist of links of two types. The former provide a progressive movement. The second - angular displacement. Such standard links for their movement use either pneumatic or hydraulic (more powerful) drive.

The manipulator, created by analogy with the human hand, is equipped with a technological gripping device for working with parts. In various devices of this type, the grip was most often performed by mechanical fingers. When working with flat surfaces, objects were grasped using mechanical suction cups.

If the manipulator had to work simultaneously with many similar billets, then the gripper was carried out thanks to a special extensive design.

Instead of the gripping device, the manipulator is often equipped with mobile welding equipment, a special technological atomizer or simply a screwdriver.

How the robot moves

Robot automatic machines are usually adapted to two types of displacement in space (although some of them can be called stationary ones). It depends on the conditions of the specific production. If it is necessary to ensure movement on a smooth surface, then it is realized with the help of a directional monorail. If you want to work at different levels, use "walking" systems with pneumatic suction cups. Moving robot is perfectly oriented in both spatial and angular coordinates. Modern positioning devices of similar devices are unified, they consist of technological blocks and allow to provide highly accurate movement of workpieces with weight from 250 to 4000 kg.

Design

The use of the automated machines in question at multidisciplinary facilities has led to a certain unification of their main constituent units. Modern industrial robotic manipulators have in their design:

• The frame used to fix the gripping device (grapple) is a kind of "hand" that actually performs the processing;
• Grapple with a guide (the latter determines the position of the "hand" in space);
• Supply devices that drive, transform and transmit energy in the form of torque on the axis (thanks to them, the industrial robot receives the potential of motion);
• System of control and management of the implementation of the programs assigned to it; Reception of new programs; Analysis of information coming from the sensors, and, accordingly, transfer it to the providing devices;
• A system for positioning the working part, measuring positions and movements along the axes of manipulation.

Dawn of the creation of industrial robots

Let's return to the recent past and recall how the history of the creation of industrial automatic machines began. The first robots appeared in the United States in 1962, and they were produced by the companies "Unimission Incorporated" and "Versatran". Although, to be precise, the industrial robot "Unimeite" created by the American engineer D. Devol, patented his own automatic control system, programmed with punched cards, was released before all the same. This was an obvious technical breakthrough: "smart" machines memorized the coordinates of the points on their route and performed work according to the program.

The first industrial robot "Unimeite" was equipped with a two-finger device for gripping on the pneumatic drive and "hand" on a hydraulic drive with five degrees of freedom. Its characteristics allowed you to move a 12-kilogram piece with an accuracy of 1.25 mm.

Another robot manipulator "Versatran", created by the company of the same name, loaded and unloaded 1200 bricks per hour into a baking oven. He successfully replaced the work of people in a harmful environment for their health with a high temperature. The idea of its creation proved to be very successful, and the design is so reliable that individual machines of this brand continue to work in our time. And this despite the fact that their resource exceeded hundreds of thousands of hours.

Note that the device of industrial robots of the first generation in value terms assumed 75% of mechanics and 25% of electronics. Re-adjustment of such devices required time and caused downtime of equipment. To reorient them for the purpose of performing a new job, the management program was replaced.

The second generation of robot machines

Soon it was found out: despite all the pluses, the first-generation machines proved to be imperfect ... The second generation assumed a more subtle management of industrial robots - adaptive. The very first devices required the ordering of the environment in which they worked. The latter circumstance often indicated high additional costs. This became critical for the development of mass production.

A new stage of progress was characterized by the development of a multitude of sensors. With their help, the robot received a quality called "sensation". He began to receive information about the external environment and, in accordance with it, choose the best option for action. For example, I gained the skills to take a part and get around it with an obstacle. There is such an action due to the microprocessor processing of the received information, which further, entered into the variables of the control programs, are really guided by the robots.

Types of basic production operations (welding, painting, assembly, various kinds of machining) are also subject to adaptation. That is, when performing each of them, a multivariance is initiated to improve the quality of any of the above works.

Management of industrial manipulators is mainly carried out programmatically. The hardware of the control function is the industrial mini PC / 104 or MicroPC. Note that adaptive control is based on a multivariate software. And the decision to choose the type of program work is accepted by the robot on the basis of information about the environment described by the detectors.

A characteristic feature of the functioning of the second-generation robot is the preliminary availability of established operating modes, each of which is activated at certain indicators obtained from the external environment.

The third generation of robots

Automatic robots of the third generation are able to independently generate a program of their actions depending on the task and the circumstances of the environment. They do not have "cribs", i.e., written technological actions in certain variants of the external environment. They have the ability to independently optimally build an algorithm for their work, as well as quickly implement it in practice. The cost of electronics of such an industrial robot is tens of times higher than its mechanical part.

The newest robot, realizing the capture of the detail thanks to the sensors, "knows" how successfully he did it. In addition, the gripping force itself (force feedback) is regulated, depending on the brittleness of the material of the part. Perhaps, that's why the device of industrial robots of the new generation is called intellectual.

As you understand, the "brain" of such a device is its control system. The most promising is regulation, carried out according to the methods of artificial intelligence.

Intelligence to these machines is set by application packages , programmable logic controllers, modeling tools. In production, industrial robots are combined into a network, ensuring the proper level of interaction between the "man-machine" system. Also, tools for predicting the operation of such devices in the future have been developed, thanks to the implemented software modeling, which allows choosing the optimal variants of the action and configuration of the connection to the network.

Leading global companies that produce robots

Today, the use of industrial robots is provided by leading companies, among them Japanese (Fanuc, Kawasaki, Motoman, OTC Daihen, Panasonic), American (KC Robots, Triton Manufacturing, Kaman Corporation), German (Kuka).

What are known in the world of these firms? In the asset Fanuc - the fastest delta robot M-1iA (such machines are usually used for packaging), the strongest of robotic serials - M-2000iA, recognized worldwide by robots-welders ArcMate.

Industrial robots manufactured by Kuka are no less in demand. These machines with German precision perform processing, welding, assembly, packaging, palletizing, loading.

Also impressive is the model range of the Japanese-American company Motoman (Yaskawa), working on the American market: 175 models of industrial robots, as well as more than 40 integrated solutions. Industrial robots, used in the US for manufacturing, are mostly manufactured by this leading company in the industry.

Most of the other companies represented by us occupy their niche by making a narrower range of specialized devices. For example, Daihen and Panasonic produce welding robots.

Ways to organize automated production

If we talk about the organization of automated production, then at first a rigid linear principle was implemented. However, at a sufficiently high speed of the production cycle, there is a significant drawback - downtime due to failures. Alternatively, a rotary technology was invented. With this organization of production, the workpiece and the automated line (robots) themselves move in a circle. Machines in this case can duplicate functions, and failures are practically eliminated. However, in this case, the speed is lost. The ideal option for organizing the process is a hybrid of the two above. It is called rotary-conveyor.

Industrial robot as an element of flexible automatic production

Modern "smart" devices are quickly reconfigured, highly productive and independently perform work with the help of their equipment, processing materials and blanks. Depending on the specifics of the use, they can function both within the framework of one program, or by varying their work, i.e., choosing from a fixed number of provided programs the right one.

The industrial robot is a constituent element of flexible automated production (generally accepted abbreviation - GAP). The latter also includes:

• System that carries out computer-aided design;
• A complex of automated management of technological equipment of production;
• Industrial robots-manipulators;
• Automatically working production transport;
• Devices that carry out loading / unloading and placement;
• System of control over production technological processes;
• Automatic production control.

More about the practice of using robots

Real industrial applications are modern robots. Their types are different, and they ensure high productivity of strategically important industries. In particular, in many respects the economy of modern Germany owes its growing potential to their application. In what sectors are these "iron workers" working? In metal working they function practically in all processes: casting, welding, forging, providing the highest level of quality of work.

Casting as an industry with extreme conditions for human labor (meaning high temperatures and pollution) is largely robotized. Machines from Kuka are mounted even in foundries.

The food industry also received equipment from Kuka for production purposes. "Food robots" (photos presented in the article) mostly replace people in areas with special conditions. Distributed in the production of machines that provide a warm room microclimate with a temperature not exceeding 30 degrees Celsius. Robots made of stainless steel masterly process meat, participate in the production of dairy products, and, of course, stack and pack products in the best way.

It is difficult to overestimate the contribution of such devices to the automotive industry. According to experts, the most powerful and productive machines to date are exactly "Kukov" robots. The photos of such devices that carry out the whole range of car assembly operations are impressive. It's really time to talk about automated production.

The processing of plastics, the production of plastic, the manufacture of the most complicated parts from a variety of materials, ensure the robots in production in a really polluted environment that is harmful to human health.

Another important area of application of "Kukovsky" units is wood processing. Moreover, the described devices provide both the execution of individual orders, and the establishment of large-scale production at all stages - from primary processing and sawing to milling, drilling, grinding.

Price list

At the present time in the market of Russia and the CIS countries, robots produced by Kuka and Fanuc companies are in demand. Their prices range from 25 000 to 800 000 rub. Such an impressive runaway is explained by the existence of various models: standard light-duty (5-15 kg), special (solving special tasks), specialized (working in an unconventional environment), heavy lifting capacity (up to 4000 tons).

conclusions

It should be recognized that the potential of using industrial robots is still not fully exploited. At the same time, thanks to the efforts of specialists, modern technologies allow implementing more and more daring ideas.

The need to increase the productivity of the world economy and maximize the share of intellectual human labor serve as powerful incentives for the development of ever newer types and modifications of industrial robots.