Where To Find The Best Industrial Robot

The world of automated manufacturing is very competitive and more and more assembly lines and other processes are making use of the industrial robot. They don't call in sick, require a pension, go on strike or bleat about doing tedious, repetitive tasks. A good robot will work quickly and maintain the highest level of precision. Different types are able to perform spray painting, pick and place, palletizing, welding, or quality control of products. They have taken some of the drudgery out of work but not resulted in millions of people losing their jobs, as some people predicted.

Some machines are powered by electric motors, others use hydraulic systems and some are programmed by computers. The first industrial robot was a basic tool for transporting objects around and was produced by a company called Unimation in 1956. Japanese companies followed suit with their own variations during the 1970s. Other more sophisticated robots were put on line that was able to do assembly work and arc welding. It was generally large companies that included the industrial robot in their process and the car industry was a particular advocate of the new technology.  General Electric and General Motors invested heavily in robots.  However, it was the Japanese who led the market by the 1980s.

The robots have become ever more elaborate and advanced with some incorporating Artificial Intelligence. The Snake-Arm industrial robot has an application that enables it to maneuver around obstacles in the way.  Robots vary in the amount of autonomy they have. Some need continuous human supervision, some need only intermittent supervision and others are extremely autonomous as in the case of robots involved in space travel.

A typical robot, around the size of a human being, can carry a load of approximately 100 lbs. The robots can be re-programmed during their lifetime but most are just programmed once, as it is less expensive to buy a new robot needed for a new process than to re-programme an existing one. The most used industrial robot is the SCARA (Selective Compliance Articulated Robot Arm). This is used on assembly lines and has built in vision, in addition to advanced arm capability, making it possible to move objects around very quickly.

These technological wonders will continue to develop and change the face of industry, hospital procedures and space exploration. There is also work being done to adapt some of the industrial techniques to the home for ordinary people to program robots to perform everyday, domestic tasks.