ABSTRACT
The industrial robot consists of two primary elements: the manipulator arm, which moves through the power of several dc electric servo motors, hydraulic servo-valves or other devices, and the controller, which directs motion of the arm by directing power sent to the servo motor. Control of robot arms ranges from highly repeatable open loop devices, to servo-controllers that utilize external sensors in the control of robot actions. Computer-controlled robots are capable of being programmed "off-line" using a high level programming language and do not have to rely on being physically taught. Robot coordinate systems may be of four types: cylindrical, spherical, jointed-spherical and rectangular. The robotic inspection work cell can range from only a robot and a test instrument to a complete inspection line. Robots may be utilized for testing in two ways: The robot handling a test instrument, or the robot handling a component and moving it into appropriate position for instrumentation measurement.
