Does your robot really know where it is?

Industrial robots are not accurate enough to be used without heavy investment in fixtures and manual programming to correct for positional variations, but this situation could be corrected with the introduction of a new position determination system. PosEye 1 allows fixed and mobile robots to determine their absolute position and orientation. The author contends that without more active support from robot manufacturers in adopting such systems, current investment in full off‐line programming systems or digital plant technology will leave the automation industry with a costly “end of cable” problem.