Serial Manipulators Among all robotic mechanical systems mentioned above, robotic manipulators deserve special attention, for various reasons. One is their relevance in industry. Another is that they constitute the simplest of all robotic mechanical systems, and hence, appear as constituents of other, more complex robotic mechanical systems, as will become apparent in later chapters. A manipulator, in general, is a mechanical system aimed at manipulating objects. Manipulating, in turn, means to move something with one’s hands, as it derives from the Latin manus, meaning hand. The basic idea behind the foregoing concept is that hands are among the organs that the. | 6 1. An Overview of Robotic Mechanical Systems FIGURE . Canadarm2 and Special-Purpose Dextrous Manipulator courtesy of the Canadian Space Agency. Serial Manipulators Among all robotic mechanical systems mentioned above robotic manipulators deserve special attention for various reasons. One is their relevance in industry. Another is that they constitute the simplest of all robotic mechanical systems and hence appear as constituents of other more complex robotic mechanical systems as will become apparent in later chapters. A manipulator in general is a mechanical system aimed at manipulating objects. Manipulating in turn means to move something with one s hands as it derives from the Latin manus meaning hand. The basic idea behind the foregoing concept is that hands are among the organs that the human brain can control mechanically with the highest accuracy as the work of an artist like Picasso of an accomplished guitar player or of a surgeon can attest. Hence a manipulator is any device that helps man perform a manipulating task. Although manipulators have existed ever since man created the first tool only very recently namely by the end of World War II have manipulators developed to the extent that they are now capable of actually mimicking motions of the human arm. In fact during WWII the need arose for manipulating probe tubes containing radioactive substances. This led to the first six-degree-of-freedom DOF manipulators. Shortly thereafter the need for manufacturing workpieces with high accuracy arose in the aircraft industry which led to the first numerically-controlled NC machine tools. The synthesis of the six-DOF manipulator TLFeBOOK Serial Manipulators 7 FIGURE . Special-Purpose Dextrous Manipulator courtesy of the Canadian Space Agency. and the NC machine tool produced what became the robotic manipulator. Thus the essential difference between the early manipulator and the evolved robotic manipulator is the term robotic which has only recently
