Hi all,
I came across this video (see below) of the Staubli TP80 and...how is it moving so fast?!!!
How is this picker / placer moving so fast?! I really thought multi-axis robot arms were the most amazing thing, and now seeing this SCARA type robot that is moving on only two axes but at blazing fast speed, I think that this will have to be the first project that I build...a scale model of a ultra high speed SCARA robot, that can pick and place small items. But before i begin, I need to figure out how i can get a servo or motor to move as quick as in the video.
I'll have to make the robot frame out of aluminium or super rigid 3d printed plastic, and if a shell for the frame is needed, i'll use cloth to keep things light. I'll also use a medium to small working envelope for the arm, to keep its movements nice and quick.
My question is, from everyone's experience using motors, what type of small servo or motor could i use, that can perform at the above speeds, for extended periods of time?
And as far as using a vaccuum gripper, it looks like these devices are syringes that are activated by linear actuators. For slow applications these work perfectly, but for high speed applications, can a linear actuator move super fast? And can a vaccuum device activate the vacuum quick enough, or will this aspect always be a bottleneck to the fastest speed that a scale model picker/placer can run at?
Also, would it be better to have an actual vaccuum cleaner suction available at the gripper all the time, and then use some type of servo controlled valve to open/close a hole in the vaccuum line, which will cause suction or reduce suction enough to drop whatever is being gripped?
Additionally, back to servo motors, i've heard (mentioned in a book) that certain robots in manufacturing use clutches. In micro robotics, could a motor/servo movement be made more quick if the motor was spinning all the time, and when movement was needed, a clutch could be engaged or disengaged like in a car?
I would like the scale model to be able to do 200 picks per minute, which is under what the Stauble TP80 can do, If i can modify servo gears to make them quicker and use metal housing instead of plastic to avoid meltage, and even move the servo's internal circuit board outside of the servo to keep it cool I will.
I just need a bit of input from the technical experts on this site to see how feasible this is. And what it would take to make this feasible. But not anything like titanium gears or diamond coated capacitors lol!
Oh and i just remembered one more thing...when watching the robot in the video, do you think that there is a vision system in place? Or is the robot just going through standard movements, and not "knowing" that there is an item to pick at certain locations, but just navigating to and activating the gripper suciton at locations, and again navigating and releasing the gripper suction at other locations? Are there hobby robitics vision systems that can do the trick of detecting items and assisting with pick n place? I've looked on ebay, and machine vision cameras for industrial robots are too pricey!
All input is going to be much appreciated.
One of my theories to make motor movement quicker is to use the idea i posted in the robot tree thread, which was to stack a few motors one on top the other, and send them each a signal to "move" So if I wanted a flag on the end of an output shaft to move 90 degrees, i would not attach it to one motor and move that motor 90 degrees. I'd stack 3 motors on top of one another, and mount the flag on the the uppermost motor. I'd then tell each motor to move 30 degrees. Theoretically, this would achieve the 90 degree flag movement in less time than one single motor doing a 90 degree turn correct?
I'm not taking into accout that a stack of motors might have inertia problems at the bottom servo, so i guess i'd have to use a larger motor at the bottom of the stack, and smaller motors as i go up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVog5VyOiu4