3 ms·

> It can build stuff using a range of tools with a precision of less than five millimeters So a precision of 10 millimeters, or worse than that? Obvious lexica

> It can build stuff using a range of tools with a precision of less than five millimeters So a precision of 10 millimeters, or worse than that? Obvious lexical ambiguity aside, I wonder what they're doing to drop the precision of that ABB arm so far. It looks like it's built around an off-the-shelf IRB2400 to me, which comes from the factory with a repeatability of 0.06mm. 5mm might be an approachable number to a civil engineer, framing carpenter, or bricklayer, but it's not impressive at all in robotics. Also, the Thinkpad T430 and W540 made me smile. So much more appropriate for this bot than the Macbooks or iPads you see in so many videos.

akiselev 10y ago
Can it still provide that kind of repeatability along all degrees of freedom at full load though? Last time I worked with robotic arms (Staubli) the real world precision was much worse than the specs claimed. With something as heavy and imprecise as a construction brick, I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least a few millimeters of wiggle room close to the edge of the arm's reach. In my experience, the tolerances on parts used in automated assembly lines don't have such high variability as those in construction (and this seems like a very general purpose robot capable of some complex architectures).
alkonaut 10y ago
> a repeatability of 0.06mm That is in a controlled environment where the robot can be programmed to know where it stands in a coordinate system, and the surfaces it works on aren't moving relative to that point. Take any robot in an industrial setting and put it's base on a soft pillow, and it will be a more difficult problem. It will have to use computer vision rather than just precise stepper motors to get where it wants. This thing places things like bricks which are probably +/-5 or 10mm in shape, on a wall that sags, and does so standing on e.g. flexible wheels or tracks, on a construction site where the floor might be a temporary plywood one. I'd guess it can move its arm, if the load is light, to within 0.06mm of somewhere. It just can't know where that somewhere is because it's using a computer vision system with much higher tolerances to do so.

akiselev 10y ago

Can it still provide that kind of repeatability along all degrees of freedom at full load though? Last time I worked with robotic arms (Staubli) the real world precision was much worse than the specs claimed. With something as heavy and imprecise as a construction brick, I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least a few millimeters of wiggle room close to the edge of the arm's reach. In my experience, the tolerances on parts used in automated assembly lines don't have such high variability as those in construction (and this seems like a very general purpose robot capable of some complex architectures).

alkonaut 10y ago

> a repeatability of 0.06mm That is in a controlled environment where the robot can be programmed to know where it stands in a coordinate system, and the surfaces it works on aren't moving relative to that point. Take any robot in an industrial setting and put it's base on a soft pillow, and it will be a more difficult problem. It will have to use computer vision rather than just precise stepper motors to get where it wants. This thing places things like bricks which are probably +/-5 or 10mm in shape, on a wall that sags, and does so standing on e.g. flexible wheels or tracks, on a construction site where the floor might be a temporary plywood one. I'd guess it can move its arm, if the load is light, to within 0.06mm of somewhere. It just can't know where that somewhere is because it's using a computer vision system with much higher tolerances to do so.