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Robotic and Embedded Control

There are many factories where robots are used on a production line. The jobs that the robots do are generally jobs which humans would find boring and repetitive, or jobs that may be dangerous.

These jobs would previously have been done by humans, but they may have been re-trained for other jobs - or possibly have been made redundant.

There will be some initial costs in purchasing the equipment and installing it, but the advantages of a robotic system would include..

  • robots work 24 hours a day - no need for breaks.

  • robots do not need to be paid.

  • robots work consistently - they do not get tired or make mistakes.

Example :

Computer-controlled robots may be found in car-making factories. The jobs they do may include..

  • welding or assembling parts

  • paint spraying

  • moving heavy parts around the factory.

The robots will have been programmed to perform the jobs they do.

 

Body panels being painted by industrial robots.

Example :

In CAD/CAM processes, CNC machine tools are connected to computers and used to manufacture products which have been designed on the computer using design software. The program consists of numerical data.

 

This picture shows a CNC milling and boring machine.
Robotic systems will be realtime systems. Any data the processor receives will be processed immediately. 

 

An embedded system has a board with a ROM chip which has a stored special-purpose application program which controls a machine. This program is run continuously as long as the system is switched on. 

Input data may be received from sensors; the program processes the data and may send output signals to control the machine.

 

Washing machines, microwaves, traffic lights, are all examples of embedded systems. They all have programs stored on ROM controlling their actions.