Robots – but not as we know them

Citation

Loughlin, C. (2002), "Robots – but not as we know them", Industrial Robot, Vol. 29 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2002.04929daa.001

Robots – but not as we know them

Robots – but not as we know them

In terms of major application areas for robotics most people would probably put the automotive industry at the top of the list. This was certainly the case in the beginning, but these days I would expect the electronics industry to come out at the top of the list or at least a close second. Statistics are hard to come by as robot definitions vary. However if you limit your search to only include "robots" with three or more axes then at the last count (IFR/UN Statistics for year, 2000) there were 181,000 robots in the automotive industry and 142,000 in the electronics industry.

Even though the telecoms industry has taken a (hopefully short term) dive in recent months, the near endless demands for electronic goodies of one form or another marches relentlessly on. Indeed a major application for electronics these days is within automobiles, and it is likely that most cars will soon have as much or more processing power on board than our home or office PCs.

Robots used to be used as an alternative to human labour, because they were cheaper to run, were more consistent and they did not need to take breaks. As quality levels and performance expectations have risen, then slowly but surely people have been squeezed out of the picture, so that people are no longer an alternative to robot labour. Spot welds (if used at all) are now placed to within a fraction of a millimetre and semiconductor components have now shrunk to the point that manual assembly is impossible.

The main reason for the success of machines is that they can be improved within relatively short timescales, whereas people are becoming less and less dextrous all the time. Normally these machine improvements are gradual and incremental, with each advance being more or less predictable. However we are now beginning to reach the point of diminishing returns in our search for precision. New technologies, as opposed to improved versions of present ones, are now required.

Our themes for this issue are the semiconductor industry and high precision, and our paper by Jean-Philippe Bacher et al. (pp. 349-53) is a good case in point. Joints based on rotary or linear bearings can be very precise indeed but the future lies elsewhere. Flexures eliminate many of the problems of wear and joint longevity, and are a very good example of how robotics now needs to develop new technologies and also embrace those that are well established in other industries (e.g. aerospace).

Anyone who considers that robotic developments have reached a plateau and that they can now cut back on their research budgets needs to think again. The future will have robots – but not as we know them.

Clive Loughlin