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Essay about Robotics and Automation in Industries

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When people think of robots, an image of a mechanical, stiff, talking, moving, human-like machine might come to mind. Robots are, in fact, computerized machines that are ultimately utilized to simplify larger scale tasks. They include control machines, computer controllers, or microprocessor based automated systems just to name a few. The ultimate goal of industrial engineering is to expedite processes; therefore, with such developed and modern technology, the manufacturing process is more efficient, cost effective, and there is almost no human error. With all its benefits the automation and robotics movement has made way for new fetes and greater prospects in economic terms for large-scale firms. The idea behind robots and their uses …show more content…

This device was used in bomb diffusions and in handling dangerous substances like radioactive materials. With time, these machines went from total mechanical operation to mechanical operation with the addition of electronic feedback control. That being said, these devices were actually used in Atomic Energy Commission around the 1940s. The robot is a mechanical manipulator whose motions are controlled by programming techniques very similar to those used in numerical control. Cyril Walter Kenward and George C. Devol are two names in robotic history that deserve recognition; both renound scientists built robotic devices as early as the 1950’s and had their devices patented in 1957 and 1952 respectfully. Their brilliant ideas were later driven forward, and one man in particular, Joseph F. Engelberger, was the “catalyst” to Devol’s idea when they crossed paths in 1965, when discussion of the Unimate began. By 1962, they came together once again to start the Unimation Company. Ford Motor Company put their robotic technological fetes into action in their assembly lines, which generated the use of Unimation products around the United States, Europe and Japan. The PUMA (Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly) is an industrial robot arm that was developed by Victor Scheinman at Unimation in 1970. It was electric motor powered and had six joints so for the first time; motions were no longer limited to linear transfers from one point to another. On another note, post

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