Industrial Robots and the Future

What does the future hold for the indus­tri­al robot indus­try? Take a clos­er look at some of the recent emerg­ing trends that are shap­ing the future of robots:

Robots Off the Shelf

Indus­tri­al robots are more acces­si­ble and afford­able today than ever before. Stan­dard robot mod­els are now mass-pro­duced, mak­ing more avail­able to meet the ever-increas­ing demand. This increased acces­si­bil­i­ty has, in turn, led to a steady price drop for new robots. In addi­tion, the refur­bished robot­ics mar­ket is fur­ther expand­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for low-cost models.

Inte­gra­tion Made Simple

Today, robot­ic inte­gra­tion is more straight­for­ward, more con­ducive to plug and play instal­la­tion. Periph­er­als, robot mod­els, and con­trollers are designed to com­mu­ni­cate more eas­i­ly with one anoth­er. This com­pat­i­bil­i­ty makes for eas­i­er work­cell build­ing and the result­ing sys­tems are more reli­able and flexible. 

Stan­dard­iza­tion

Six-axis indus­tri­al robots have become more uni­form. When com­par­ing robots from a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers, it’s easy to notice the basic sim­i­lar­i­ties in style and usabil­i­ty. Mar­ket com­pe­ti­tion has brought about near­ly inter­change­able robot series (think pay­loads and work enve­lope ranges).

Increased Flex­i­bil­i­ty

Cur­rent robot­ics com­po­nents and mod­els can han­dle more. They are built to offer com­plex­i­ty and dura­bil­i­ty in dif­fer­ent set­tings. Weld­ing guns have greater longevi­ty. Welders can han­dle more vari­ety. Robot tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues to advance — cre­at­ing robust, capa­ble product. 

End-of-Arm Tool­ing

The ver­sa­til­i­ty offered by the use of quick-change EOAT fea­tures opens up large cost-sav­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. EOAT allows for the con­sol­i­da­tion of simul­ta­ne­ous or pro­gres­sive tasks through the inter­change­abil­i­ty of spe­cial­ized end com­po­nents includ­ing: grip­per sys­tems, vac­u­um sys­tems, 3‑jaw chucks, high-speed spin­dles, cylin­ders, or drills.

Dual-arm Tech­nol­o­gy

The intro­duc­tion of the dual-arm design has pro­vid­ed solu­tions to pro­duc­tion sce­nar­ios requir­ing a high lev­el of dex­ter­i­ty and agili­ty. The abil­i­ty to pro­gram the dual-arms to work either col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly or sep­a­rate­ly makes them capa­ble of exe­cut­ing an excep­tion­al­ly wide range of assem­bly, pick­ing, and tend­ing applications.

Vision Guid­ance

The unique cam­era sen­so­ry sys­tem of vision-guid­ed robots allows for the pick-and-place of mul­ti­ple parts of vary­ing geom­e­try and elim­i­nates the need for care­ful ori­en­ta­tion of parts when feed­ing the sys­tem. Addi­tion­al­ly, when mul­ti­ple prod­ucts are man­u­fac­tured on the same process line, the soft­ware-con­trolled switch-over can be accom­plished very quick­ly and with­out mechan­i­cal adjustment.

Robot­worx helps com­pa­nies stay on the edge of the robot­ic future by bring­ing new and gen­tly used mod­els of the lat­est tech­nolo­gies with­in reach. Please con­tact Robots​.com with any ques­tions about the future of indus­tri­al robots- 877−762−6881.