Robot (industrial)

The people behind the invention:



Karel Capek (1890-1938), a Czech playwright

George C. Devol, Jr. (1912- ), an American inventor

Joseph F. Engelberger (1925- ), an American entrepreneur





Robots, from Concept to Reality



The 1920 play Rossum’s Universal Robots, by Czech writer Karel

Capek, introduced robots to the world. Capek’s humanoid robots—

robot, a word created by Capek, essentially means slave—revolted

and took over the world, which made the concept of robots somewhat

frightening. The development of robots, which are now defined

as machines that do work that would ordinarily be carried out

by humans, has not yet advanced to the stage of being able to produce

humanoid robots, however, much less robots capable of carrying

out a revolt.

Most modern robots are found in industry, where they perform

dangerous or monotonous tasks that previously were done by humans.

The first industrial robots were the Unimates (short for “universal

automaton”), which were derived from a robot design invented

by George C. Devol and patented in 1954. The first Unimate

prototypes, developed by Devol and Joseph F. Engelberger, were

completed in 1962 by Unimation Incorporated and tested in industry.

They were so successful that the company, located in Danbury,

Connecticut, manufactured and sold thousands of Unimates to

companies in the United States and abroad. Unimates are very versatile

at performing routine industrial tasks and are easy to program

and reprogram. The tasks they perform include various steps in automobile

manufacturing, spray painting, and running lathes. The

huge success of the Unimates led companies in other countries to

produce their own industrial robots, and advancing technology has

improved all industrial robots tremendously.



 A New Industrial Revolution



Each of the first Unimate robots, which were priced at $25,000,

was almost five feet tall and stood on a four-foot by five-foot base. It

has often been said that a Unimate resembles the gun turret of a

minitank, set atop a rectangular box. In operation, such a robot will

swivel, swing, and/or dip and turn at the wrist of its hydraulically

powered arm, which has a steel hand. The precisely articulated

hand can pick up an egg without breaking it. At the same time, however,

it is powerful enough to lift a hundred-pound weight.

The Unimate is a robotic jack of all trades: It can be programmed,

in about an hour, to carry out a complex operation, after which it can

have its memory erased and be reprogrammed in another hour to

do something entirely different. In addition, programming a Unimate

requires no special training. The programmer simply uses a teachcable

selector that allows the programmer to move the Unimate arm

through the desired operation. This selector consists of a group of

pushbutton control boxes, each of which is equipped with buttons

in opposed pairs. Each button pair records the motion that will put a

Unimate arm through one of five possible motions, in opposite directions.

For example, pushing the correct buttons will record a motion

in which the robot’s arm moves out to one side, aims upward,

and angles appropriately to carry out the first portion of its intended

job. If the Unimate overshoots, undershoots, or otherwise

performs the function incorrectly, the activity can be fine-tuned

with the buttons.

Once the desired action has been performed correctly, pressing a

“record” button on the robot’s main control panel enters the operation

into its computer memory. In this fashion, Unimates can be programmed

to carry out complex actions that require as many as two

hundred commands. Each command tells the Unimate to move its

arm or hand in a given way by combining the following five motions:

sliding the arm forward, swinging the arm horizontally, tilting

the arm up or down, bending the wrist up or down, and swiveling

the hand in a half-circle clockwise or counterclockwise.

Before pressing the “record” button on the Unimate’s control

panel, the operator can also command the hand to grasp an item

when in a particular position. Furthermore, the strength of the

grasp can be controlled, as can the duration of time between each action.

Finally, the Unimate can be instructed to start or stop another

routine (such as operating a paint sprayer) at any point. Once the instructor

is satisfied with the robot’s performance, pressing a “repeat

continuous” control starts the Unimate working. The robot will stop

repeating its program only when it is turned off.

Inside the base of an original Unimate is a magnetic drum that

contains its memory. The drum turns intermittently, moving each of

two hundred long strips of metal beneath recording heads. This

strip movement brings specific portions of each strip—dictated by

particular motions—into position below the heads. When the “record”

button is pressed after a motion is completed, the hand position

is recorded as a series of numbers that tells the computer the

complete hand position in each of the five permissible movement

modes.

Once “repeat continuous” is pressed, the computer begins the

command series by turning the drum appropriately, carrying out

each memorized command in the chosen sequence. When the sequence

ends, the computer begins again, and the process repeats

until the robot is turned off. If a Unimate user wishes to change the

function of such a robot, its drum can be erased and reprogrammed.

Users can also remove programmed drums, store them for future

use, and replace them with new drums.



Consequences



The first Unimates had a huge impact on industrial manufacturing.

In time, different sizes of robots became available so that additional

tasks could be performed, and the robots’ circuitry was improved.

Because they have no eyes and cannot make judgments,

Unimates are limited to relatively simple tasks that are coordinated

by means of timed operations and simple computer interactions.

Most of the thousands of modern Unimates and their multinational

cousins in industry are very similar to the original Unimates

in terms of general capabilities, although they can now assemble

watches and perform other delicate tasks that the original Unimates

could not perform. The crude magnetic drums and computer controls

have given way to silicon chips and microcomputers, which

have made the robots more accurate and reliable. Some robots can

even build other robots, and others can perform tasks such as mowing

lawns and walking dogs.

Various improvements have been planned that will ultimately

lead to some very interesting and advanced modifications. It is

likely that highly sophisticated humanoid robots like those predicted

by Karel Capek will be produced at some future time. One

can only hope that these robots will not rebel against their human

creators.





See also here !