Reading comprehension. The robotic arm

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2.3. Reading comprehension

2.3.1. Read the text and answer the questions:

1. What is the origin of the word ‘robot’?

2. What kind of work and what kind of tasks are robotic arms designed to perform?

3. Is there any similarity between a human arm and a robotic arm? What is it?

4. What industries do robotic arms commonly work in?

The robotic arm

1. The term robot comes from the Czech word “robota”, generally translated as "forced labor". Indeed, most robots in the world are designed for heavy, repetitive manufacturing work. They handle tasks that are difficult, dangerous or boring to human beings.

2. The most common manufacturing robot is the robotic arm. It consists of a number of joints and links. A robotic joint provides relative motion between two links of the robot. The computer controls the robot by rotating individual step motors connected to each joint. Unlike ordinary motors, step motors move in exact increments. This allows the computer to move the arm very precisely, repeating exactly the same movement over and over again. The robot uses motion sensors to make sure it moves just the right amount.

3. An industrial robot closelyresembles a human arm - it has the equivalent of a shoulder, an elbow and a wrist. Typically, the shoulder is mounted to a stationary base structure rather than to a movable body.

4. Your arm's job is to move your hand from place to place. Similarly, the robotic arm's job is to move an end effector from place to place. You can outfitrobotic arms with all sorts of end effectors, which are suited to a particular application. One common end effector is a simplified version of the hand, which can grasp and carry different objects. Robotic hands often have built-in pressure sensors that tell the computer how hard the robot is gripping a particular object. This keeps the robot from dropping or breaking whatever it is carrying.

5. Industrial robots are designed to do exactly the same thing over and over again. To teach a robot how to do its job, the programmer guides the arm through the motions using a handheld controller. The robot stores the exact sequence of movements in its memory, and does it again and again every time a new unit comes down the assembly line. Most robots are reprogrammable. To change its behavior, you simply write a new program to its computer.

6. Most industrial robots work in auto assembly lines, putting cars together. Robots can do a lot of this work more efficiently than human beings because they are extremely precise. They always drill in the exactly the same place, and they always tighten bolts with the same amount of force, no matter how many hours they've been working. Manufacturing robots are also very important in the computer industry. It takes an incredibly precise hand to put together tiny microchips.

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