8.6. Robots – from fantasy to reality

We call our age of the scientific and technological revolution because it abounds in new discoveries without which further human progress would be impossible. The terms "robot" and "cybernetic explosion" are perhaps an indicator. Only recently they were confined to the world of science fiction. Now they play a growing role in the real world.

Today there are about 60 000 machine in the world that can be called robots. They get a lot of attention because of the tremendous prospects for their application in the most important fields of science and technology. They are indispensable when man himself cannot get to the object of his research - radioactive materials, outer space or the ocean floor. And although these are in themselves vast areas where robot technology can be used, they are certainly not the only ones.

Our mechanical assistants

Most of us are familiar with the term "production robots" – programme-controlled automatic devices that can replace man at machines, machine tools and conveyor lines, doing all the monotonous operations which are often quite arduous. Automation has already relived man of much of his work on machines.

Machines are becoming more and more sophisticated and "skilled", and man's work on them simpler and less skilled.

So one might assume that in designing these kinds of machines it would have been expedient to equip them with devices making "self-serving". A machine might take the billet itself, install it properly, work it, and then stack it.

But it seems that these kinds of "simple" jobs on most machines, equipment and assembly operation are simple only when man does them himself. When attempts are made to automate the auxiliary operation by traditional methods, the automatic system is either very specialized, i.e., it can handle only one kind of item, thus limiting its use, or supersophisticated, sometimes even more complicated and costlier than the machine itself.

A production robot is an all-purpose automatic device that can be used to work on different machines and different production processes. This is done by basing the robot's control system on "digital mechanisms" that enable its operation programme to be changed quickly.

Capacity for intelligent activity

What can robots do for us? First, as already pointed out, the automation of arduous and monotonous labour. Robots linked to semi-automated equipment form a completely automatic production process. One example is the coupling of a conventional programme-controlled turning lathe to a robot designed at the Experimental Research Institute of Metal-Cutting Machine Tools. The complex, which was put into operation in the Moscow Region, boosted the lathe's productivity by 20 per cent and enabled one operator to man several of them. The robot handles items weighing pu to 40 kg, so that the only thing the worker does is control its performance, and it can be quickly and easily reprogrammed to handle all kinds of billets. Now these robots have been given the go-ahead for serial production.

What makes the robot "nearer" to man? First the mechanical hand which can perform movements and actions much as the human hand can do.

Of course, the resemblance is very approximate. The robot's hand isn't nearly as mobile as the human hand. But what really counts is that the robot can do many different pre-programmed and, therefore, "intelligent" operations.