An Electric Industrial Robot—‘Motoman’

Yaskawa developed a new and unique motor‐operated handling equipment “Motohand®” which is used in various fields of industries. Today more than 300 sets are operating in actual production lines. According to the development of automation concept and tools, the main theme becomes the automation of the sophisticated operations with flexibility. The sophisticated operations mean: • handling in the integrated manufacturing, • operation caused by variation of work type, • operation which depends upon experiences of the operator, • and so forth. The unfavorable work is also one of the main themes which much worries operators. At this step the new concept of production system and tools for these requirements must be developed. Here, in this paper, an industrial robot “Motoman®” is introduced as one of the new automation tools. The robot “Motoman®” consists of: • 5 degrees of freedom with electric digital servo drive, a 16‐bit microcomputer, 5 degrees of freedom make it possible to reach any point in the operation space and to set any posture. The microcomputer, organically connected to the robot mechanism, makes it very simple to make operation program in both teach‐in play‐back and programmed sequencial operation. Using the robot with know‐how and specification of the respective application, we can enlarge the horizon of automation and challenge to release human from the unfavorable work.