Industrial Robot

A programmable, multi-jointed robot arm used in factory automation.

Under ISO 8373, as adopted by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), an industrial robot is an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose manipulator, programmable in at least three axes, which can be either fixed in place or mounted on a mobile platform, used for industrial automation. Common forms include 6-axis arms, SCARA robots, Delta parallel robots, and Cartesian robots, mainly used for welding, painting, material handling, assembly, and palletizing. Most run fixed trajectories set through teach-and-playback or offline programming, achieving high precision and cycle-time performance, but reprogramming is needed for a new task, which is exactly the gap embodied AI is trying to close with learning-based methods. The major manufacturers, FANUC, ABB, KUKA, and Yaskawa, are known as the “Big Four.”

ExampleRows of 6-axis robot arms in an auto body shop spot-weld car bodies along taught trajectories.

Related

Collaborative Robot · 6-Axis Robot Arm · Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm · Big Four of Industrial Robotics · Teach-and-Playback Programming · International Federation of Robotics

Sources

IFR: Industrial Robots
IFR: Robot definitions at ISO