1 Definitions and objectives. - Origin of the word robot'. - Robotics today. - What is a robot?. - Classification of robots. - Conclusions. - 2 Structure and specification of articulated robots. - Degrees of freedom of a solid. - Degrees of freedom of a robot. - Position of the vehicle and resulting redundancy of degrees of freedom. - How many degrees of freedom?. - False degrees of freedom. - Architecture of the arm. - Description of articulated mechanical systems. - Conclusions. - 3 Articulated mechanical systems: determination of kinematic elements. - Computation of the orientation of a chain relative to a set bound to an upper segment. - Computation of the orientation of a chain relative to a set bound to a lower segment. - Computation of the position of a point on a chain in relation to an upper segment. - Computation of the position of a point on a chain in relation to a lower segment. - Determination of the velocity vectors of rotation of different segments of a chain relative to a set of coordinate axes. - Determination of the velocity vectors of translation of different segments of a chain relative to a set of coordinate axes. - Conclusions. - 4 Calculation of robot articulation variables. - The absence of a solution. - An infinite number of solutions. - A limited number of solutions. - Practical choice of [Pi(R0) Sj(R0)]. - Mechanisms with six degrees of freedom. - Mechanisms with more than six degrees of freedom. - Conclusions. - 5 Positional control of articulated robots. - Reference and starting configurations. - The principles of positional control. - Balanced and initialization configurations. - The problems associated with positional control. - 6 Speed control of articulated robots. - The principles of speed control. - Problems arising from the use of equation (6-16). - Methods ofresolving redundant systems. - Conclusions. - 7 Articulated mechanical systems: the dynamic model. - A dynamic model for an open articulated chain of rigid segments without backlash or friction. - Development of a dynamic equation for a system having three degrees of freedom. - Another type of model: the bond graph. - Difficulties with dynamic models. - A dynamic model of a belt drive. - Conclusions. - 8 Dynamic control of articulated robots. - Problems associated with real time and computation. - Simplification of the equation of the model. - Other methods of dynamic control. - The choice of the space used in computation. - Conclusions. - 9 Learning and trajectory generation. - Methods of recording trajectories. - Manual control used outside of training. - Improved controls. - Trajectory generation. - Conclusions. - 10 Tasks and performance of articulated robots. - Description of tasks. - The performance of articulated robots. - Conclusions. - References. Language: English