In order to save cost and time, attempts are made by the automotive industry to simulate in advance system planning and programming of robots involved in the manufacturing process. Unfortunately, the use of off‐line programming produces inaccuracies in robot positioning so that reteaching is...

Visitors to the Hanover Industrie Messe in April would have noticed that robot design is going through a phase of significant evolution. Among the many new ranges of robot that the major European manufacturers announced, it was evident clearly that robots are now designed not only to fulfil the...

One of the features of this year's Automan exhibition was a new robot weld guidance system from ESAB called LaserTrak which has already been used by sister company ABB in applications in Scandinavia and the USA.

The Laser 91 exhibition in Munich last June demonstrated that YAG laser and robot combinations are fast becoming an accepted production tool. 3D cutting, drilling and marking are the most common applications though welding is also of interest.

In the early years of robotics, applications were concentrated in the automotive industry. Today, that is still largely true, although the technology is definitely spreading wider afield.

GMFanuc has recently completed the installation of two robotic spot welding cells at IBC Vehicles Ltd. Although the use of robots for spot welding applications is well proven technology these installations are unusual in respect of the system design.

A robot welding line for heating boilers, working to a cycle time of less than five minutes, has been developed by Cloos for a German manufacturer.

An accident of architecture has placed Pisa upon the tourist map along with such evocative names as Rome, Florence, Galileo and Fibonacii, to say nothing of Buozzi and Giovanni. As the venue for the 5th International Conference on Advanced Robotics, ICAR, Pisa has an atmosphere that is as far...

Only robot welding can give the quality and consistency of output demanded in welding the steel frame and aluminium alloy swing arm of the new range of Triumph motorcycles. Project engineer Ben Parry talks to Jack Hollingum .

Just a few years ago, at what then was the annual American robot exposition and conference in Detroit, the head of a US robot firm remarked sullenly that the robot industry might soon resemble the auto industry in the US.