The robots in our minds are all humanized images of robots. So, after deconstructing the image of a robot, especially an industrial robot, what will he look like?
For such a professional question, let us listen to what Dr. Duan Jinjun from Southeast University has to say. (The following part is excerpted from Duan Bo's sharing in "Robot Lecture Hall", we focus on the industrial robot system)
Whether it is industrial robots, biped robots, quadruped robots seen in the news, or the robot images in animation works, most of them are robot bodies, and the robot control system is behind the scenes. Similar to the human brain, this control system often Installed inside the robot body or have a separate control unit.
Let’s take a look at the picture below (taken from the official website of Googol Technology). This picture depicts an overview of an industrial robot system. An industrial robot system includes a robot body, a servo motor (or a DC motor ), and a reducer. , driver, controller, teach pendant, and some peripheral equipment, such as camera, six-dimensional force sensor , IO module, welding parts and so on.
For an industrial robot system, we simplify the above diagram, simplify the industrial robot system just now, and extract the essential parts of the industrial robot system: control system, robot body and teaching pendant.
The control system can be divided into two parts from the conventional structure: the executive body and the control system. The actuator includes the robot body, servo motor and deceleration device; the control system is divided into controller, servo driver, teach pendant and expansion module, and the expansion module includes force sense module, vision module, grasping module, etc., that is to say, we Every action we have seen the robot can complete requires the addition of expansion modules.
For example, if the steam robot Blitzcrank in League of Legends lacks the grabbing module, it cannot complete the grabbing enemy function in the mechanical flying claw skill.
Now let's get into the key point, let's analyze the function and use of each part of the control system in detail.
For the industrial robot system, the teaching pendant is a device used to interact with the user, which can process and memorize the task instructions given by the user to the industrial robot. Generally, it is divided into three modes: teaching mode, online mode and remote mode.
The teaching mode is used to teach the action sequence of the robot, which is finally saved in the teaching box in the form of a job;
The online mode is to reproduce the operation taught by the user. At this time, the teaching pendant is required to analyze the operation online and send the analysis result to the controller.
Remote mode means that the user can control the action of the robot through a network cable or through the network . At this time, the user is not necessarily right next to the robot, but can be remotely controlled.
A more popular understanding: the teaching pendant is like the remote control of a remote control racing car. Using the remote control to control the racing car is the same as using the teaching pendant to control an industrial robot. Emmm, it seems that tall industrial robots have become useless. So mysterious.
Of course, the interface style of the teaching pendant is not the same, the following is the appearance of some teaching pendants~
After talking about the teaching pendant, let’s talk about the control system. The control system is the command center of the entire system. Now there are three types of architectures for the control system on the market: IPC-based bus-type open control architecture, PC+motion control card separation architecture and height Integrated control architecture.
Among them, the bus-type open control architecture based on IPC is widely used at present, and its advantage is that it is easy to expand and has good real-time performance; the separation architecture of PC+motion control card is slightly inferior, its scalability is weak, and the system is heavy and cumbersome; while the highly integrated control The architecture is mainly suitable for small robotic systems. The realization of the control system basically depends on the line of code, which includes very complex codes such as underlying drive, modeling, kinematics, dynamics, trajectory planning, and mission planning.
Finally, let's talk about the robot body. It is like a human arm or leg. It is an actuator that receives instructions from the robot control system. Don't think that the body is just an actuator. The motor and reducer in the body But they are the core components of the robot body, especially the reducer.
Having said so much, what are the application scenarios of industrial robots?
Among the many manufacturing fields, the most widely used field of industrial robots is the automobile and auto parts manufacturing industry, and continues to expand to other fields, such as machining industry, electronic and electrical industry, rubber and plastic industry, food industry , wood and In the field of furniture manufacturing and so on.
In industrial production, industrial robots such as welding robots, laser processing robots, spraying robots, handling robots, machine tool robots, stamping robots, and vacuum robots have been widely used.
Often the form presented above is: the user teaches the industrial robot a set of fixed task sequences. If a visual sensor or a force sensor is added, the industrial robot will have visual perception and tactile perception. When industrial robots are endowed with perception capabilities, industrial robots will be expanded to a wider range of occasions. For example, human-computer collaboration, human-computer interaction, vision-based logistics picking, precision assembly, etc., force-based grinding, deburring, flexible assembly and other applications.
When it comes to the application of industrial robots, I also want to talk about CCTV's "Great Power Heavy Weapons". On March 4, 2018, CCTV broadcasted the seventh episode of "Great Power Heavy Weapons" "Intelligent Manufacturing Pioneer". As a robot media practitioner, it is difficult to say anything other than pride when watching the video, which is more suitable to describe my heart emotional noun. Today, the concept of robots and artificial intelligence has become a gimmick for many companies to hype their own products. There are also various Internet celebrity robots on the market. We continue to see the appearance of robots in various entertainment programs and news media, and even the concept of robots has become a gimmick. At the same time, "Great Power Heavy Weapons" put these industrial robots that have nothing to do with entertainment and outrageous remarks in the public's field of vision. Arms, lathes, and engines may be speechless from the moment of birth to their retirement. These complex mechanical devices do not have a pleasing anthropomorphic appearance. Known, but this is also a major feature of industrial robots:
It might not be flashy, but it's useful enough.
Made in China 2025 proposes to closely focus on the key links in key manufacturing fields, and carry out integrated innovation and engineering application of the integration of new generation information technology and manufacturing equipment. Support government-industry-university-research-application joint research, develop smart products and self-controllable smart devices and realize industrialization. Relying on superior enterprises, focusing on the intelligentization of key processes, the replacement of key positions by robots, the intelligent optimization control of the production process, and the optimization of the supply chain, build smart factories/digital workshops in key areas. In key areas, industries, and enterprises with good basic conditions and urgent needs, implement pilot demonstrations and application promotions of process manufacturing, discrete manufacturing, intelligent equipment and products, new business forms and models, intelligent management, and intelligent services. Establish an intelligent manufacturing standard system and information security system, build an intelligent manufacturing network system platform; at the same time, organize the implementation of large aircraft, aero engines and gas turbines, civil aerospace, intelligent green trains, energy-saving and new energy vehicles, marine engineering equipment and high- tech ships , smart grid complete sets of equipment, high-end CNC machine tools, nuclear power equipment, high-end diagnostic and treatment equipment and a number of innovation and industrialization special projects and major projects. All these magnificent processes are inseparable from the help and support of industrial robots. We may not see industrial robots intuitively in our daily life, but they are always by our side, in any place you can imagine. The place glows and radiates heat.