AUTOMATION & ROBOTICS
SPEAKING A COMMON LANGUAGE SHARED PROGRAMMING ENVIRONMENT BRINGS ROBOT AND CNC TECHNOLOGIES TOGETHER
he last five decades have seen tremendous ad- vances both in robotics and in CNC machining centre technology. In recent years manufacturers have begun reaping the benefits of bringing these two technologies together and robot tending of CNC machines is already helping to improve productivity for many businesses. However, there is more to come from these two important tech- nologies thanks to the development of a single programming environment for both. Barry Weller, Product Manager at Mitsubishi Electric, looks at the evolution of these two tech- nologies, and the new possibilities for machine builders and OEMs to develop an important com- petitive advantage in the design of CNC machining centres, making it easy for their end-users to reap the full benefits of automation.
T
A journey through the last 50 years of auto- mation technologies is a story of increased so-
phistication and democratisation. The products that were once state-of-art just a few decades ago would look like children’s toys today, while the high cost meant they were only available to a select few. The modern equivalents, while orders of magnitude more complex, are at the same time more compact, simple to use and readily afford- able. Even on some of the biggest machinery assets where investment is still significant, the return on that investment can often be measured in months thanks to the increased productivity they deliver. CNC machining and robotics are two good examples of this pattern. While CNC (computer numerical control) technology dates back to punch-card programming of machines as early as the 1950s, CNC machines as we would recognise them today – offering multi-axis, fully automated, computer-controlled milling and machining – are quite a recent innovation. And with them has come
a growing need for operators of this specialist equipment, with the Institute of Technical Trades US, boldly claiming in 2016 that in many industries up to 40% of job positions would be in the field of CNC.
Six decades of robot innovation Robotics has seen a parallel evolution. The first indus- trial robots were developed in the late 1950s, with the Unimate in 1961 being the first commercially used in- dustrial robot, lifting and stacking hot metal parts on a General Motors assembly line in New Jersey, USA. Another notable development came in in 1969, with Standford University presenting the first all-electric, 6-axis articulated robot – a combination of rotary, revolute, prismatic and spherical joints. The 1970s brought the first robot arms as we would recognise them today, with PUMA (Program- mable Universal Machine for Assembly) arms which
14 FEBRUARY 2022 | FACTORY&HANDLINGSOLUTIONS
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