機床模具機械材料(英文版)（doc 10頁）

機床模具機械材料(英文版)內容提要：
There are a variety of definitions of the term robot. Depending on the definition used, the number of robot installations worldwide varies widely. Numerous single purpose muchines are used in manufacturing plants that might appear to be robots. These machines are hardwired to perform a single function and can not be reprogrammed to perform a different function. Such single-purpose machines do not fit the definition for industrial robots that is becoming widely accepted. This definition was developed by the robot Institute ofAmerica:
A robot is a reprogrammable muhifunctional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools, or specialized devices through variable progranmled motions for the perfommnce of a variety of tasks.
Note that this definition cxmtalns the words reprograrnmable and multifunctional. It is these two characteristics that separate the true industrial robot from the various single-purpose machines used in modern manufacturing firms. The term"reprogrammable"implies two things:The robot operates aec~)rding to a written program, and this program can be rewritten to acconlmodatc a variety of manufacturing tasks.
The term"multifunctional"means that the robot can, through reprogramming and the use of different cnd-effectors, perform a number of different manufacturing tasks. Definitions written around these two critical characteristics are becoming the accepted definitions among manufacturing professionals.
The fimt articulated arm came about in 1951 and was used by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. In 1954, the first programmable robot was designed by George Devol. It was based on two important technologies:
(1) Numerical control (NC) technology.
(2) Remote manipulation technology.

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