It is urgent: the progress and present situation of current robot technology

Qu Daokui and Zhang Nianzhe, Shenyang Institute of Automation, China Academy of Sciences.

First, the latest development of foreign robots

From the birth of robots to the early 1980s, robotics experienced a long and slow development process. In 1990s, with the rapid development of computer technology, microelectronics technology and network technology, robot technology has also developed rapidly. In addition to the continuous progress of industrial robots, various advanced robot systems used in non-manufacturing industries have also made great progress. Next, the latest development of robots will be described according to the two technical development routes of industrial robots and advanced robots.

1. industrial robots

(1) Robot manipulator: Through the application of modern design methods such as finite element analysis, modal analysis and simulation design, the optimal design of robot manipulator is realized. The robot company represented by KUKA in Germany changed the parallelogram structure of the robot into an open-chain structure, which expanded the working range of the robot and greatly improved the performance of the robot with the application of light aluminum alloy materials. In addition, the advanced RV reducer and AC servo motor make the robot manipulator almost a maintenance-free system.

(2) Parallel robot: Using parallel mechanism and robot technology to realize high-precision measurement and machining is the expansion of robot technology to numerical control technology, which lays the foundation for the integration of robot and numerical control technology in the future. Coma in Italy, FANUC in Japan and other companies have developed this product.

(3) Control system: The performance of the control system has been further improved. From the 6-axis robot with standard control in the past to the 2 1 axis or even 27-axis robot, software servo and full digital control are realized. The man-machine interface is more friendly, and the interface based on graphic operation has also come out. Teaching programming is still the main programming method, but offline programming has been applied in some fields.

(4) Sensing system: The laser sensor, vision sensor and force sensor are successfully applied in the robot system, realizing automatic seam tracking, automatic positioning and precise assembly of objects on the automatic production line, greatly improving the working performance and adaptability of the robot to the environment. Japanese companies such as Kawasaki, An Chuan, FANUC, ABB of Sweden, KUKA of Germany, and Les have all launched such products.

(5) Network communication function: The latest robot controllers in An Chuan and KUKA have realized the connection with Canbus, Profibus and some networks, which has made the robot take a big step from independent application to networked application in the past, and also made the robot develop from special equipment to standardized equipment in the past.

(6) Reliability: Due to the rapid development of microelectronics technology and the application of large-scale integrated circuits, the reliability of robot system has been greatly improved. The reliability MTBF of robot system used to be thousands of hours, but now it has reached 50 thousand hours, which can meet the needs of any occasion in winter.

2. Advanced robots

In recent years, the field of human activities has been expanding, and the application of robots has also developed from manufacturing to non-manufacturing fields. Ocean development, space exploration, mining, construction, medical care, agriculture and forestry, service, entertainment and other industries all put forward the requirements of automation and robotics. Compared with manufacturing industry, these industries are characterized by unstructured and uncertain working environment, so robots are required to have walking function, external perception ability and local autonomous planning ability, which is an important development direction of robotics.

(1) Underwater robots: AUSS of the United States, MT-88 of Russia and EPAVLARD of France have been applied to offshore oil exploitation, seabed exploration, salvage operations, pipeline laying and inspection, cable laying and maintenance, dam inspection, etc. , forming two major underwater robots: wired underwater robots and autonomous underwater robots.

(2) Space robot: Space robot has always been an important research field of advanced robots. At present, the United States, Russia, Canada and other countries have developed various space robots. For example, Sojanor, a space robot of NASA, USA. Sljanor is an autonomous mobile car with a weight of 1 1.5kg, a size of 630~48mm and six wheels. Its successful application on Mars has attracted worldwide attention.

(3) Robots for nuclear industry: Foreign research mainly focuses on high-performance servo hands with dexterous mechanism, accurate and reliable action, quick response, light weight, good rigidity and easy handling and maintenance, as well as semi-autonomous and autonomous mobile robots. Typical systems have been completed, such as the radioactive storage tank cleaning system based on ORML robot in the United States, the dual-arm manipulator for reactors, the radiation monitoring and fault diagnosis system successfully developed in Canada, and the C7 dexterous hand in Germany.

(4) Underground robots: Underground robots mainly include mining robots and underground pipeline maintenance robots. The main research contents include: mechanical structure, walking system, sensor and positioning system, control system, communication and remote control technology. At present, Japan, the United States, Germany and other developed countries have developed robots for repairing underground pipelines and large pipelines such as oil and natural gas, and various mining robots and automation systems are under development.

(5) Medical robot: The main research contents of medical robot include: planning and simulation of medical surgery, robot-assisted surgery, minimally invasive surgery, telepresence surgery, etc. The United States has studied telepresence surgery for battlefield simulation, surgical training, anatomy teaching and so on. France, Britain, Italy, Germany and other countries have jointly carried out research on remote information processing, biomedicine and electromechanical surgical tools, and achieved some fruitful results.

(6) Construction robots: Japan has developed more than 20 kinds of construction robots. Such as plastering robots for high-rise buildings, prefabricated components installation robots, indoor decoration robots, ground polishing robots, glass cleaning robots, etc. And actually made up. Carnegie Mellon University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, etc. They are developing models such as pipeline digging robots and interior wall installation robots, and carrying out basic research such as sensors, mobile technology and system automation construction methods. Britain, Germany, France and other countries are also carrying out research in this area.

(7) Military robots: In recent years, the United States, Britain, France, Germany and other countries have developed the second generation of military intelligent robots. It is characterized by autonomous control mode, which can complete tasks such as reconnaissance, combat and logistics support. It has the ability to see, smell and touch the battlefield, can automatically track the terrain and choose the road, and has the function of automatically searching, identifying and destroying enemy targets. For example, American Navplab autonomous navigation vehicle, SSV semi-automatic ground combat vehicle, French autonomous rapid motion reconnaissance vehicle (DARDS), German MV4 explosive ordnance disposal robot, etc. At present, ORNL is developing military robots for various purposes, such as Abrams tanks, Patriot missiles and batteries.

It can be predicted that in 2 1 century, all kinds of advanced robot systems will enter all fields of human life and become good assistants and close partners of human beings.

Second, the current research hotspots and development trends

At present, the international robotics community is stepping up scientific research, developing robotics research, and developing towards intelligence and diversification. The main research contents focus on the following 10 aspects:

1. structural optimization design technology of industrial robot manipulator: explore new high-strength lightweight materials, further improve the load/self-weight ratio, and at the same time develop the mechanism in the direction of modularization and reconfiguration.

2. Robot control technology: focusing on the open and modular control system, the man-machine interface is more friendly, and the language and graphic programming interface are being developed. The standardization and networking of robot controller and network controller based on PC has become a research hotspot. In addition to further improving the operability of online programming, the practicality of offline programming will become the research focus.

3. Multi-sensor system: In order to further improve the intelligence and adaptability of the robot, the use of multi-sensors is the key to solve its problems. The research focuses on the effective and feasible multi-sensor fusion algorithm, especially in the case of nonlinear, non-stationary and non-normal distribution. Another problem is the practicality of the sensing system.

4. The structure of the robot is dexterous, and the control system is getting smaller and smaller, and the two are developing towards integration.

5. Remote control and monitoring technology of robots, semi-autonomous and autonomous technology of robots, coordinated control between multiple robots and operators, establishment of large-scale robot remote control system through network, and establishment of pre-display for remote control in case of time delay.

6. Virtual robot technology: based on multi-sensor, multimedia, virtual reality and telepresence technology, realize virtual teleoperation and human-computer interaction of robots.

7. Multi-agent control technology: This is a new field of robot research. This paper mainly studies the multi-agent group architecture, mutual communication and negotiation mechanism, perception and learning methods, modeling and planning, group behavior control and so on.

8. Micro/micro robot: This is a new field and key development direction of robot research. In the past, the research in this field was almost blank, so the progress in this field will lead to the revolution of robot technology and will have an inestimable impact on all aspects of social progress and human activities. The research of micro-robot technology mainly focuses on system structure, motion mode, control method, sensing technology, communication technology and walking technology.

9. Soft robots: mainly used for medical treatment, nursing and recreation. Traditional robot design does not consider the close relationship with people, so its structural materials are mostly metal or hard materials. Soft robot technology requires that its structure, control mode and sensing system are safe and the robot is friendly to people when it accidentally collides with the environment or people.

10. Humanoid bionic technology: This is the highest realm of robot technology development, and only some basic research is carried out in some aspects at present.