Industrial Robotics: Programming, Simulation and Applications (Repost)

About 86 years ago, in 1921, Karel Capek introduced the word “robot” in his book, Rossum’s Universal Robots. The term was then coined and first used by Isaac Asimov in a short story published in 1942. Subsequently, after World War II, automatic machines were designed to increase productivity, and machine-tool manufacturers made numerically-controlled (NC) machines to enable manufacturers to produce better products. At the end, a marriage between the NC capability of machine tools and the manipulators created a simple robot. The early robot was sold in 1961 by Unimation, the first robot company established by Engelberger. This happened 40 years after the word “robot” was introduced. Today, after another 40 year, robotic arms are widely used in industrial manufacturing. There is no doubt that robots have increased in capability and performance through improved mechanisms, controller, software development, sensing, drive systems, and materials.
The ARS presents the state-of-the-art developments in this book on “Industrial Robotics: Programming, Simulation and Applications,” which collects 35 chapters of recent robotics topics in different applications. The articles are contributed by research scientists, computer scientists, professors, and engineers from 18 countries in different regions of the world. It contains a good representation of today’s advanced robotics, maintaining a good balance between practical and research scientific focus.