Search results

Carbon fibre tactile sensors, under development for at least the last five years, produce a resistance change under pressure. They could therefore offer potential as sensors in gripper design as well as other areas in industry where force measurement and slip control are important parameters to monitor.

There is increasing economic attractiveness of the minicomputer in control applications. In order to reap the full benefit of modern computer technology the currently used control systems require modification. The minicomputer should not be seen as a plug in replacement for drum or peg board programming.

The free roving robot in the form of a computer controlled industrial truck is now technically possible. The use of small on‐board computers and navigation aids frees the robot from dependence on fixed route marking. Conventional vehicles such as fork lift trucks may be modified for autonomous or semi‐autonomous control.

An extensive survey of over 300 reports worldwide shows that the state‐of‐the‐art in tactile sensing — defined as continuously variable touch sensing over an area where there is special resolution — is primitive. Only now is a new level of sophistication beginning to appear. However, for industrial systems the simplest may prove to be the most reliable.

Mobile robots offer more flexibility and scope than the fixed single arm type. French researchers are putting considerable effort into developing such devices and here results of their efforts are described.

Developing general purpose mobile robots is very much dependent on the availability of suitable sensors. A common choice by researchers is ultrasonics and work at the Laboratory of Applied Advanced Electronic Techniques (LATEA) has resulted in a simple, self‐adapting and self‐correcting ultrasonic sensor,

Simple and cost‐effective sensors can increase the industrial applicability of robots. At Hull University software has been developed which is common to all types of sensor and has been written using selected elements of a previously developed macro library.

Eddy current and ultrasonic sensing have potentially large advantages over vision systems for guidance of arc welding, except with very complex geometries. They are simpler, less expensive, and eddy current is immune to fumes from the arc. The authors review work currently in progress at Oxford.

Through a unique design and application of a photo‐elastic material a gripper was developed that was able to perform high precision assembly tasks with a robot on ultra thin‐walled(R/T300).

ADA DEVELOPMENTS The ADA programming language project, which is supported by the U.S. Department of Defence, will have far reaching effects on both the programming and the design of future computers. Its original objects were to cater for the production of reliable, readable programs for communicating with computer systems. There was to be a formality of language definition and even simplicity in its concept. Whether these aims have been achieved at the design level is, as discussed in Kybernetes (10(3), 156, 1981), still the subject of controversy. Certainly Prof. C. A. R. Hoare (Oxford University, U.K.) has reservations.