外文翻译机器人技术发展趋势

外文翻译机器人技术发展趋势内容摘要：

gh enabling rapid product changeover and evolution that can39。 t be matched with conventional hard tooling. Boosting Competitiveness As mentioned, robotic applications originated in the automotive industry. General Motors, with some 4050,000 robots, continues to utilize and develop new approaches. The ability to bring more intelligence to robots is now providing significant new strategic options. Automobile prices have actually declined over the last two to three years, so the only way that manufacturers can continue to generate profits is to cut structural and production costs. When plants are converted to new automobile models, hundreds of millions of dollars are typically put into the facility. The focus of robotic manufacturing technology is to minimize the capital investment by increasing flexibility. New robot applications are being found for operations that are already automated with dedicated equipment. Robot flexibility allows those same automated operations to be performed more consistently, with inexpensive equipment and with significant cost advantages. Robotic AssistanceA key robotics growth arena is Intelligent Assist Devices (IAD).operators manipulate a robot as though it were a bionic extension of their own limbs with increased reach and strength. This is robotics technology not replacements for humans or robots, but rather a new class of ergonomic assist products that helps human partners in a wide variety of ways, including power assist, motion guidance, line tracking and process automation. IAD use robotics technology to help production people to handle parts and payloads, more, heavier, better, faster, with less strain. Using a humanmachine interface, the operator and IAD work in tandem to optimize lifting, guiding and positioning movements. Sensors, puter power and control algorithms translate the operator39。 s hand movements into super human lifting power. New robot configurationsAs the technology and economic implications of Moore39。 s law continue to shift puting power and price, we should expect more innovations, more costeffective robot configurations, more applications beyond the traditional service emphasis. The biggest change in industrial robots is that they will evolve into a broader variety of structures and mechanisms. In many cases, configurations that evolve into new automation systems won39。 t be immediately recognizable as robots. For example, robots that automate semiconductor manufacturing already look quite different from those used in automotive plants. We will see the day when there are more of these programmable tooling kinds of robots than all of the traditional robots that exist in the world today. There is an enormous sea change ing。 the potential is significant because soon robots will offer not only improved costeffectiveness, but also advantages and operations that have never been possible before. Envisioning Vision Despite the wishes of robot researchers to emulate human appearance and intelligence, that simply hasn39。 t happened. Most robots still can39。 t see，versatile and rapid object recognition is still not quite attainable. And there are very few examples of bipedal, upright walking robots such as Honda P3, mostly used for research or sample demonstrations. A relatively small number of industrial robots are integrated with machine vision systems，which is why it39。 s called machine vision rather than robot vision. The early machine vision adopters paid very high prices, because of the technical expertise needed to such systems. For example, in the mid1980s, a flexible manufacturing system from Cincinnati Milacron included a $900,000 vision guidance system. By 1998 average prices had fallen to $40,000, and prices continued to decline. Today, simple pattern matching vision sensors can be purchased for under $2,000 from Cognex, Omron and others. The price reductions reflect today39。 s reduced puting costs, and the focused development of vision systems for specific jobs such as inspection. Robots already in use everywhereSales of industrial robots have risen to record levels and they have huge, untapped potential for domestic chores like mowing the lawn and vacuuming the carpet. Last year 3,000 underwater robots, 2,300 demolition robots and 1,600 surgical robots were in operation. A big increase is predicted for domestic robots for vacuum cleaning and lawn mowing, increasing from 12,500 in 2000 to almost 500,000 by the end of 2004. IBot Roomba floor cleaning robot is now available at under $. In the wake of recent anthrax scares, robots are increasingly used in postal sorting applications. Indeed, there is huge potential to mechanize the US po。