Now in its third edition, this book is both an introduction to industrial robots from a system point of view and an introduction to integrating robots in CIM. The proposed audience is made up of industrial professionals and college students. Support for instructors is available. New in this edition are three chapters more oriented to CIM and a case study developed throughout all of the chapters.
Chapter 1, “Introduction to Industrial Robots,” covers the basic terminology of CIM and manufacturing systems. Chapter 2, “Robot Classification,” introduces the most-used classifications, based on arm geometry, power sources, application areas, control techniques, and trajectory calculations. ISO standards are presented.
Chapter 3, “Automated Work Cells and CIM Systems,” is a new chapter on the implementation of CIM systems. It introduces the main case study, which focuses on gas turbine production at Western Electric. Chapter 4, “End-of-Arm Tooling,” describes the most-used kinds of grippers and addresses the problem of which gripper to select to accomplish a given job. Active and passive compliance are introduced here. Chapter 5, “Automation Sensors,” classifies the sensors used in work cells and the reasons they are used. Sensors are grouped into three categories: contact, noncontact, and process. Many technical data are given. Chapter 6, “Work-Cell Support Systems,” is a new chapter addressing the problem of how to integrate electromechanical systems to build a robotics cell. Machine vision is introduced. Chapter 7, “Robot and System Integration,” reviews the architecture of CIM systems and describes some possible cells in which robots can operate. Architectures of such cells are presented, and the functions of sensors are seen from the point of view of system integration. Chapter 8, “Work-Cell Programming,” discusses programming issues for workcell control and for robot programming. Robot languages are classified into four categories--joint control, primitive motion, structured programming, and task-oriented--according to the level at which the user must interact. Reference frames and taught points are discussed in some detail.
The last chapters cover additional aspects of work organization. Chapter 9, “Justification and Applications of Work Cells,” explains the main application areas of robots. Chapter 10, “Safety,” presents the directives for safely inserting robots into production. The causes of accidents are analyzed, and the American national standard is presented. Chapter 11, “Human Interface: Operator Training, Acceptance, and Problems,” illustrates management concerns about the changes in work organization induced by robots.
The best aspect of this book is the unusual coverage of items usually scattered among books on control theory, CIM, and so on. Of course, this coverage is somewhat superficial. The student may need to cover some parts in more depth. The worst aspect of the book is its complete lack of references, which is especially inconvenient for students. However, the book is well written and should be easily understood by students of various engineering curricula.
A final consideration is how to relate this book to the idea of robots usually found in the computer science community, and in artificial intelligence (AI) in particular. AI usually takes a top-down approach, starting from the decision level needed to accomplish a function, while robotics takes a bottom-up approach, starting from pieces and connecting them to build a system that can accomplish a function. In a recent issue of CACM [1], George Bekey envisages a large and important role for computer science in robotics and manufacturing. All computer scientists can benefit from knowing what robots are and what they do.
