One of the most stable platforms in the world of industrial robotics is the 6-axis articulated arm robot. The joining of two important components brought this basic robotic platform into being. These two components are the articulated robot arm and the controller that makes the arm work. The articulated arm is a widely use part of industrial robotics and has many characteristics that help it move from side to side, up and down, and any combination in between those. It has the ability to lift various sizes and weights of products or raw materials. But with all that capability the robot is useless without instructions that tell it where to move to, what to pick up, and what to do with the object that it lifted. The controller is the brain that sends the instructions to the robot to tell it what tasks to perform and when to perform them. Those instructions are commands that are generated by a program that is running inside the controller. A wide variety of instructions can be sent to the robot. These instructions can be varied by either modifying the program that is running in the controller or by putting a new program into the controller to run.
This simple description of industrial robotics relates the basis for many complex operations that can be done by industrial automation. The abilities of industrial robotics are limited only by the variations that can be created in a program. That really means that the abilities of this combination of machines is limitless because the program instructions can be changed in an infinite number of ways. As time has moved forward the microprocessor that is part of the controller where the instruction program runs has gotten a lot smaller and a lot faster in executing programs. As these changes occurred the reliability of the execution of the program instructions has gotten much better. Because of these advances in the technology the overall reliability of the industrial robotics has improved to a very high level of competence. It is extremely important for robotic motion to be very precise in placement and movement or the possibility of industrial automation would not be possible. A high level of timing for placement of materials is also necessary. Knowing where to move to place or pick up an object is great, but time that this is done is not in sync with other processes, the movement is irrelevant. All of these activities must be done super fast, accurate with a mini-millimeter and mini-microsecond. Watching the accuracies of the actions of these work horses is definitely a joy. I am sure that it is very heart-warming to the manager who is depending on this accuracy to keep the company production rate up and the cost of production down.
The typical configuration of the 6-axis robot is as pictured here. Axis 1 rotates at the base of the robot so that it can turn the entire device to the left or right as commanded by the controller. Axis 2 will allow the apparatus to raise or lower the body of the device in either the vertical plane. Axis 3 gives the extension arm of the robot the ability to raise or lower the end of the arm in a vertical plane, while axis 4 will turn the arm left 
and right. Axis 5 angles the end of tool at any required angle, and axis 6 turns that same end of tool. All the motion capability of the 6-axis covers any type of angle that would be required in a manufacturing operation. If you combine the possibility angles and the speed that the device can move almost any manufacturing operation can be performed by industrial robotics.
Being able to create an infinite number of instruction sets for industrial robotics is a very great advancement. Even more positive it is now possible to give a new program to or re-program an industrial robot from any location. Using the capability of offline programming a technician can set up the production instruction set for a work cell in a production facility in a software program. This program can then be fed to a virtual robot to test the movements, paths, and logic. After the program result is verified by the virtual operation, The instruction set can be fed to the real production controller to run in the production sequence. The feeding of this program to the actual controller is done through the cabling of the company network. Instruction are also given to other parts of the manufacturing operation by this same method.
Another significant advancement is in the area of vision control. The vision capability of robotics now includes camera, lens, lighting, and a microprocessor in one unit. The vision component is set up so that it can allow the robot to “see” the objects with which it is to work. This allows the automation to go to the right place to start its cycle, for instance, to “see” a part on a conveyor system that the robot is suppose to pick up. The vision component will help to get the right part, even if it is not oriented exactly the same in each cycle.
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