1、 Technical overview

The industrial robot is composed of an operator (mechanical body), a controller, a servo drive system and a detection sensor device. It is an electromechanical integration automatic production equipment that can simulate human operation, automatically control, repeat programming, and complete various operations in three-dimensional space. It is especially suitable for flexible production with multiple varieties and variable batches. It plays a very important role in stabilizing and improving product quality, improving production efficiency, improving working conditions and rapidly updating products.

Robotic technology is a new and high-tech technology that integrates computer, cybernetics, mechanism, information and sensor technology, artificial intelligence, bionics and other disciplines. It is a very active field of contemporary research and increasingly widely used. The application of robots is an important symbol of a country's industrial automation level.

Robot is not a simple substitute for manual labor, but a kind of anthropomorphic electronic mechanical device that combines the talents of human and machine. It not only has the ability of rapid response, analysis and judgment of human to environmental conditions, but also has the ability of machine to work continuously for a long time, with high accuracy and resistance to harsh environments. In a sense, it is also the product of the evolution process of machines, It is an important production and service equipment for industry and non industry, as well as an indispensable automation equipment in the field of advanced manufacturing technology.

2、 Current situation and development trend at home and abroad

There are several trends in the development of robot field abroad in recent years:

1. The performance of industrial robots continues to improve (high speed, high accuracy, high reliability, and ease of operation and maintenance), while the price of a single machine continues to decline, with the average single machine price dropping from $103,000 in 1991 to $65,000 in 1997.

2. Mechanical structure is developing towards modularization and reconfiguration. For example, the servo motor, reducer and detection system in the joint module are integrated; The whole robot is constructed by the joint module and the link module in a recombination way; There are already modular assembly robot products on the market abroad.

3. The industrial robot control system is developing towards an open controller based on PC, which is convenient for standardization and networking; The device integration is improved, the control cabinet is becoming smaller and smaller, and the modular structure is adopted; It greatly improves the reliability, operability and maintainability of the system.

4. The role of sensors in robots is becoming increasingly important. In addition to the traditional position, speed, acceleration and other sensors, the assembly and welding robots also use vision, force and other sensors, while the remote control robot uses the fusion technology of vision, sound, force, touch and other sensors to carry out environmental modeling and decision-making control; Multi sensor fusion configuration technology has been widely used in production system.

5. The role of virtual reality technology in robots has developed from simulation and rehearsal to process control, such as enabling remote robot operators to operate robots with the feeling of being in the remote operating environment.

6. The development feature of the contemporary remote control robot system is not to pursue a fully autonomous system, but to devote to the human-computer interaction control between the operator and the robot, that is, the remote control plus local autonomous system constitute a complete monitoring remote control operating system, so that the intelligent robot can go out of the laboratory and enter the practical stage. The Suojena robot launched by the United States to Mars is the most famous example of the successful application of this system.

7. Robotized machinery began to rise. Since the United States developed the "virtual axis machine tool" in 1994, this new type of device has become one of the hot spots of international research, and has explored and expanded its practical application fields.

China's industrial robots started from the "Seventh Five Year Plan" scientific and technological breakthrough in the 1980s. With the support of the state and through the "Seventh Five Year Plan" and "Eighth Five Year Plan" scientific and technological breakthrough, they have basically mastered the design and manufacturing technology of robot manipulators, the hardware and software design technology of control systems, kinematics and trajectory planning technology, produced some key components of robots, and developed robots for painting, arc welding, spot welding, assembly, transportation, etc; Among them, more than 130 sets of paint spraying robots have been applied on a large scale in nearly 30 automatic paint spraying production lines (stations) of more than 20 enterprises, and arc welding robots have been applied in the welding assembly lines of automobile manufacturers. However, in general, the level of industrial robot technology and its engineering application in China is far from that in foreign countries. For example, the reliability is lower than that of foreign products; The robot application project started late, the application field is narrow, and the production line system technology has a gap compared with foreign countries; In terms of application scale, about 200 domestic industrial robots have been installed in China, accounting for about 4/10000 of the installed robots in the world. The above reasons are mainly due to the lack of a robot industry. At present, the robot production in China is based on the requirements of users, "one customer, one redesign". There are many varieties and specifications, small batches, low universality of parts, long supply cycle, high cost, and unstable quality and reliability. Therefore, it is urgent to solve the key technologies in the early stage of industrialization, carry out comprehensive planning for products, do a good job in serialization, generalization and modeling design, and actively promote the industrialization process.

China's intelligent robots and special robots have also made many achievements under the support of the "863" plan. Among them, the most outstanding is the underwater robot. The achievements of the 6000 meter underwater cable free robot have reached the world's leading level. It has also developed direct remote control robot, dual arm coordinated control robot, wall climbing robot, pipeline robot and other models; A lot of work has been done in the development and application of robot vision, force sense, touch sense, sound sense and other basic technologies, and there is a certain foundation for development. However, the development and application of multisensor information fusion control technology, remote control plus local autonomous system remote control robot, intelligent assembly robot, robotic machinery, etc. are just starting, and there is a big gap with the advanced level of foreign countries. Only on the basis of the original achievements, we need to focus on the system to tackle key problems, can we form a system supporting practical technology and products, with a view to standing among the world's advanced ranks in the later period of the "Tenth Five Year Plan".