D. McCloy D. M. J. Harris SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B. V ISBN 978-94-010-9754-3 ISBN 978-94-010-9752-9 (eBook) DOI 10. 1007/978-94-010-9752-9 First Published 1986 Copyright (c) 1986 Don McCloy and Michael Harris Originally published by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1986 All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form by mimeograph or by any other means, without permission in writing from the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data McCloy, D. Robotics: an introduction. - (Robotics series) 1. Robots I. Title II. Harris, D. M. J. III. Series 629. 8'92 TJ211 Text design by Clarke Williams Contents Series Editor's Preface Introduction List of abbreviations and acronyms 1 Chapter 1 From flint tool to flexible manufacture 1 Introduction 1. 1 1 Technology extends human capabilities 1. 2 4 Mechanization 1. 3 5 1. 4 Automatic control 10 1. 5 Automation 11 1. 6 Robotics 13 1. 7 The elements of an industrial robot 16 1. 8 Why robots? 17 1. 9 Robot applications 26 1. 10 Recapitulation Chapter 2 Mechanisms and robot configurations 27 27 2. 1 Introduction 2. 2 Mechanisms 27 vi Contents 2. 3 Simple chains: M = 3 40 2. 4 Geometry of simple chains 43 2. 5 Matrix methods 47 2. 6 Recapitulation 58 Chapter 3 Wrists, hands, legs and feet 59 3. 1 Introduction 59 3. 2 Wrists 59 3. 3 Grippers 61 3. 4 Mobile robots 67 3. 5 Methods of support: wheels and tracks 68 3.