Introduction

Question 1

What is the Robot Niche?

Answer 1

This is when the high cost of investing in robots is spread over a suitable volume of production. It is also when the even higher costs of dedicated automation is a more expensive solution

Question 2

What is a robot?

Answer 2

It is a re-programmable and multifunctional manipulator, designed to move materials, parts, etc through varied motions to perform a variety of tasks

Question 3

What is automation?

Answer 3

It is the use or introduction of automatic equipment in a manufacturing
or other process or facility.

Question 4

Name the types of joints that allow rotational and sliding motion respectively.

Answer 4

Revolute (R) for rotational motion, Prismatic (P) for sliding motion

Question 5

What is the robot’s working envelope?

Answer 5

The robot working envelope, often referred to as the workspace, illustrates the volume that the robot can do activities.

Question 6

Explain the configuration for cartesian configuration robots. What are they used for?

Answer 6

The Cartesian configuration is widely used for pallet loading, material cutting, and other tasks which are naturally described in Cartesian coordinated. This configuration is widely used in FDM 3D printers. It is PPP

Question 7

Explain the configuration for Polar configuration robots. What are they used for?

Answer 7

RRP. The polar configuration is still widely used for machine loading and general purpose work.

Question 8

Explain the configuration for Cylindrical configuration robots. What are they used for?

Answer 8

RPP. Used mostly for pick and place arms and robots which are used for parts feeding.

Question 9

Explain the configuration for SCARA configuration robots. What are they used for?

Answer 9

RRP. Consists of two horizontal revolute joints which give motion in the horizontal plane and a prismatic joint for vertical motion. The arrangement is widely used for assembly work because the end-effector is kept strictly vertical whilst the arm is positioned.

Question 10

Explain the configuration for Anthropomorphic configuration robots. What are they used for?

Answer 10

RRR. This RRR design is very popular for general purpose robotic work.

Question 11

Explain the configuration for Parallel linkage configuration robots. What are they used for?

Answer 11

PPP. This novel design uses three prismatic axes in parallel to provide three degrees of freedom.