Industrial robots are essential to modern manufacturing — executing a vast array of functions while coordinating tasks with other forms of automation. In fact, the $1T automotive industry was the first industry with the means to make large-scale use of robotics … and advance the technologies associated with robotics as well. No wonder, as automobiles are highly sophisticated big-ticket items that can justify plant investments that may not yield ROI for years. Now, the vast majority of automotive manufacturing centers employ robotics. Only over the last two decades have the fields of packaging, semiconductor production, and the relatively new field of automated warehousing hastened their robotics adoption to rival the automotive industry.
Within robots themselves and in complementary industrial- automation equipment are electric motors, hydraulic systems, and fluid power systems; drives, controls, networking hardware, human- machine interfaces (HMIs), and software systems; and sensing, feedback, and safety components. These elements impart efficiency by executing preprogrammed routines that can readily adapt to changing real- time conditions. Increasingly, it’s expected that robotic workcells also feature reconfigurability to produce new automobile offerings ... as consumer preferences have come to evolve more rapidly than ever.
Figure 1: The automotive industry, more than perhaps any other, has spurred the advancement of robotics technologies. (Image source: Getty Images)
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