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From: loucks@intvax.UUCP (Cliff Loucks)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: High Accuracy manipulators (was Re: Robots in our Future?)
Message-ID: <3604@intvax.UUCP>
Date: 30 Aug 90 18:35:30 GMT
References: <141582@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Organization: Sandia National Labs, Org. 1411, Albq, NM
Lines: 30

From article <141582@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, by barts@cyber.Eng.Sun.COM (Bart Smaalders):
< 
< In article <1990Aug30.014817.8794@portia.Stanford.EDU> boehlke@sunrise.stanford.edu (Dan Boehlke) writes:
< 
<    I see the next breakthrough in robotics being the 
<    introduction of very high accuracy manipulators--
< 
< Very high accuracy manipulators are very difficult to design using
< today's technologies if they are to be of any general use.  The best
< (gp commercial) figures I remember from the 80's are approx. .001"
< repeatabilty for a _light duty_ electronic assembly robot (working
< envelope ~ 1 cubic foot).  Building a manipulator _accurate_ (not just
< repeatable) to .0001" with a similar envelope would probably imply:
< 
< 
< A interesting starting point for such a manipulator would be to look at
< Coordinate Measuring Machines and the technology used to build them.
< 
< - Bart 

That's essentially what Adept did with their new UltraOne.  It's a
four axis gantry on a granite base.  Rated accuracy is +-0.0002" in
a working volume of 26" x 26" x 8".

Cliff
-- 
A society is not civilized until it domesticates the icecube.

Cliff Loucks  <=>  loucks@intvax.UUCP
Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque, New Mexico