From the Unimate to the Delta Robot: The Early Decades of Industrial Robotics

In this paper, the early decades of the history of industrial robots (from the 1950\u2019s to the beginning of the 1990\u2019s, approximately) will be described. The history of industrial robotics can be considered starting with Unimate, the first industrial robot designed and built by Devol and Engelberger. The subsequent evolutions of industrial robotics are described in the manuscript, taking into account both the technical and the economic point of view, until the beginning of the 1990\u2019s, when new kinematic structures (parallel robots) appeared, allowing high-speed operations

A Brief History of Industrial Robotics in the 20th Century

Industrial robotics is a branch of robotics that gained paramount importance in the last century. The presence of robots totally revolutionized the industrial environment in just a few decades. In this paper, a brief history of industrial robotics in the 20th century will be presented, and a proposal for classifying the evolution of industrial robots into four generations is set forward. The characteristics of the robots belonging to each generation are mentioned, and the evolution of their features is described. The most significant milestones of the history of industrial robots, from the 1950\u2019s to the end of the century, are mentioned, together with a description of the most representative industrial robots that were designed and manufactured in those decades

Overview of some Command Modes for Human-Robot Interaction Systems

Interaction and command modes as well as their combination are essential features of modern and futuristic robotic systems interacting with human beings in various dynamical environments. This paper presents a synthetic overview concerning the most command modes used in Human-Robot Interaction Systems (HRIS). It includes the first historical command modes which are namely tele-manipulation, off-line robot programming, and traditional elementary teaching by demonstration. It then introduces the most recent command modes which have been fostered later on by the use of artificial intelligence techniques implemented on more powerful computers. In this context, we will consider specifically the following modes: interactive programming based on the graphical-user-interfaces, voice-based, pointing-on-image-based, gesture-based, and finally brain-based commands.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio