Robot Manipulators

An indus­tri­al robot is com­prised of a robot manip­u­la­tor, pow­er sup­ply, and con­trollers. Robot­ic manip­u­la­tors can be divid­ed into two sec­tions, each with a dif­fer­ent function:

What is a manip­u­la­tor in robotics?

The robot manip­u­la­tor is the arm and body of a robot used to move and posi­tion parts or tools with­in a work enve­lope. A robot­ic manip­u­la­tor arm com­pletes the tasks assigned to the robot. They are formed from three joints con­nect­ed by large links, which con­nect the var­i­ous sec­tions of the indus­tri­al robot arm.

Robot Wrist

The wrist is used to ori­ent the parts or tools at the work loca­tion. It con­sists of two or three com­pact joints.

Robot­ic manip­u­la­tors are cre­at­ed from a sequence of link and joint com­bi­na­tions. The links are the rigid mem­bers con­nect­ing the joints, or axes. The axes are the mov­able com­po­nents of the robot­ic manip­u­la­tor that cause rel­a­tive motion between adjoin­ing links. The mechan­i­cal joints used to con­struct the robot­ic arm manip­u­la­tor con­sist of five prin­ci­pal types. Two of the joints are lin­ear, in which the rel­a­tive motion between adja­cent links is non-rota­tion­al, and three are rotary types, in which the rel­a­tive motion involves rota­tion between links.

The arm-and-body sec­tion of robot­ic manip­u­la­tors is based on one of four con­fig­u­ra­tions. Each of these anatomies pro­vides a dif­fer­ent work enve­lope and is suit­ed for dif­fer­ent applications.

Types of Manip­u­la­tors in Robotics

Gantry Robots

Gantry robots have lin­ear joints and are mount­ed over­head. They are also called Carte­sian and rec­ti­lin­ear robots. Gantry indus­tri­al robots are able to per­form a vari­ety of appli­ca­tions, such as pick and place, order pick­ing, machine load­ing and unload­ing, pal­letiz­ing, and part trans­fer.

Cylin­dri­cal Robots

Named for the shape of its work enve­lope, cylin­dri­cal anato­my robots are fash­ioned from lin­ear joints that con­nect to a rotary base joint. These robots can be used for coat­ing, assem­bly, and machine-tend­ing robot­ic applications.

Polar Robots

The base joint of a polar robot allows for twist­ing and the joints are a com­bi­na­tion of rotary and lin­ear types. The work space cre­at­ed by this con­fig­u­ra­tion is spherical.

Joint­ed-Arm Robots

This is the most pop­u­lar indus­tri­al robot­ic con­fig­u­ra­tion. The arm con­nects with a twist­ing joint, and the links with­in it are con­nect­ed with rotary joints. It is also called an artic­u­lat­ed robot.

Pur­chase a Robot­ic Manip­u­la­tor with Robots​.com

Robots​.com pro­vides inte­gra­tion-ready Fanuc, Motoman, ABB, and Kuka indus­tri­al robots. To learn more about robot arm manip­u­la­tors or how to pur­chase an indus­tri­al robot, check out our prod­uct list­ings or con­tact us at 877−762−6881.