It is pleasant to realise that every leading institution and manufacturing company in the world is dealing with some aspects of flexible automation, because many researchers and managers in industry have found that the concept of designing and making goods and products on order, rather than for stock, is the key issue in order to cut down manufacturing costs and lead time, and eventually to stay in business in the future.

When applied to rapidly moving objects with complex trajectories, the information-rate limitation imposed by video-camera frame rates impairs the effectiveness of structured-light techniques in real-time robot servoing. To improve the performance of such systems, the use of fast infra-red proximity detectors to augment visual guidance in the final phase of target acquisition was explored. It was found that this approach was limited by the necessity of employing a different range/intensity calibration curve for the proximity detectors for every object and for every angle of approach to complex objects. Consideration of the physics of the detector process suggested that a single log-linear parametric family could describe all such calibration curves, and this was confirmed by experiment. From this result, a technique was devised for cooperative interaction between modalities, in which the vision sense provided on-the-fly determination of calibration parameters for the proximity detectors, for every approach to a target, before passing control of the system to the other modality. This technique provided a three hundred percent increase in useful manipulator velocity, and improved performance during the transition of control from one modality to the other.

The attainment of a breakeven for lower outputs, the diversification of models in order to meet market demand and the improvement of quality are accepted as strategic objectives for the automotive industry. The role of flexible manufacturing with reference to these objectives is illustrated. The steps, through which the new technology is introduced, are discussed and some production systems already installed are described within the given framework.

This paper considers theoretically and experimentally the control problem of the biped locomotion system on the double support phase. The motion on the double support phase is described by the constrained dynamic system with two static constraints. The reduced order equations are derived by eliminating Lagrange's multiplier from the constrained equations, and a control algorithm for stabilizing the motion is obtained in reduced space. Finally, this algorithm is applied to an actual robot constructed in our laboratory and its usefulness is shown.

Computer Integrated Manufacture (CIM) is concerned with providing computer assistance, control and high level integrated automation at all levels of the manufacturing industries, including the business data processing system, CAD, CAM and FMS, by linking islands of automation into a distributed processing system. The technology applied in CIM makes intensive use of distributed computer networks and data processing techniques, Artificial Intelligence and Database Management Systems. FMS in this aspect plays the role of a highly efficient and “ready to react to random requests” manufacturing facility (e.g. machining, test, assembly, welding, etc.) in this “total concept”. (Figure 1)

A robot simulation system has been developed to assist in the design of robots, layouts and robot task planning. A general type of robot manipulator can be stimulated taking into consideration the geometrical and kinematical model of the robot. The work cell with multiple robots and its industrial environment is displayed on CRT by a 3-D computer graphic system. Examples and a description of the mathematical algorithm for the kinematic modelling are also included.

An iterative procedure for obtaining dynamic model of manipulator has been proposed in this paper. The high efficiency of the procedure is reached on the basis of iterative relations of dynamic parameters. For general six revolute joint manipulator, the complete dynamic model i.e. matrices H(q), C(q), G(q) and vector of joint torques 13. requires 992 multiplications and 776 additions. When the complete dynamic model is given by 13. the number of operations reduces to 863 multiplications and 773 additions.

After elucidating the terms ‘mining’ and ‘robot’, a historical background to the problem of mining is described, with emphasis on the use of technology. Various reasons for the increasing utilisation of technology are discussed, as regards the mechanisation of existing operations and those unachievable without new technology. It is asserted that the mining industry has a number of particular features that make increasing mechanisation especially attractive. The point is made that the ultimate stage of the historical tendency towards the use of new technology is fully automatic mining, a goal that may not be realised, however, in the next decade.

The above historical discussion is followed by a critical appraisal of the conservative nature of the Australian industry and the study of the various factors that contribute to the slow uptake of new technology in mining.

Attention is then concentrated on the general problem of robots and mining. It is shown that worldwide there were no applications of robots to mining up to the end of 1981. A wide study has been carried out to identify some uses of robots in mining, but without success.

The next topic to be discussed is the widespread confusion about robots and teleoperators. The fundamental difference between the two is underlined, and particular attention is paid to Thring's teleoperator mining concept (telechiric mining). It is emphasized that telechiric mining will have no significant impact upon Australian mining in this decade.

These pessimistic asssessments are followed by claims that in some areas robotic concepts, though not robots themselves, could have a considerable effect on mining automation in the 1980's, both in Australia and elsewhere. The following projects are enumerated as possible candidates for applying robotic concepts: Surface mining; Mine development; Underground coal transport; Coal winning; Coal preparation. In order to make progress, it is recommended that a robotics expert ought to be included in the interdisciplinary teams studying the problem of mining automation.

The last part of this paper is devoted to Australia's need for robotic mining. A list of systems involving robotic concepts is presented that may be realised in the current decade. It is maintained that Australia ought to develop a few of such systems for the domestic and international markets, and that the short-term needs of the Australian mining industry are fundamentally different from those of other Australian industries as regards robots. Hence, decisions regarding robots for mining should be made independently from those appertaining to automation problems of other industries.

A method that has been proposed for the design of a control system of a muti-link arm is the optimum approach applied to the system linearized around its nominal trajectory, i.e. the dynamic trajectory that the manipulator should follow. This method works, in as much as the initial deviation from the reference trajectory is small enough. When such is not the case, it is necessary to take into account the quadratic term in the approximation, and the paper proposes a small parameter technique to solve the corresponding optimum control problem which otherwise involves cumbersome calculations.

This paper compares three numerical methods for obtaining the joint trajectory of a robot manipulator, which causes movement along the desired Cartesian path. The first solves the kinematic equations, which are given in the Jacobian form, while the other two solve the nonlinear kinematic equations directly by using an iterative computational procedure based on the conjugate gradient technique. The computational efficiency of the proposed methods is estimated in terms of the execution time on a VAX 11/750 minicomputer. It is shown that by using the capacity of microcomputers, these methods could be well used in real-time computation.

At Imperial College, the author has invented a form of universal gripper comprising two slightly separated ‘fingers’, each consisting of an array of 8 by 16 closely spaced pins which can ride vertically up and down independently of each other. Lowering the gripper over an object pushes some pins out of the way, so creating ‘customised’ fingers which mould round and fit the part. To grasp objects, either the two (slightly separated) fingers can be brought together to grip an object externally, or else they can be moved slightly apart (from a ‘closed’ position) for an internal grip. In addition, feedback from each pin of the gripper can provide tactile information about an object.

An algorithm for the inference of the external behaviour model of an automaton is given. It uses a sequential learning procedure based on induction-contradiction-correction concepts. The induction is a generalization of relationships between automaton state properties, and the correction consists in a more and more accurate discrimination of the automaton state properties. These properties are defined from the input/output contradictory sequences which are discovered after the observed contradictions between successive predictions and observations.

The major thrust of technological development is the reduction of the demands made by I.T. equipment on its users. The economic pressures which underpin such developments are based on 2 principles: the continuing fall of the cost of processing power (but particularly storage) and the market edge of simple as opposed to complex systems.

The techniques which can no longer be disregarded include voice and vision communication which frees the users' hands from the prison of the keyboard: also the logical power of IT equipment will not only extend excellence of rigorous reasoning, but also the type of person to person reasoning which takes the human factor into account.

Sufficient conditions are derived for the relative controllability of nonlinear perturbations of linear systems with distributed delays in control variable. The results are a generalization of previous results and are obtained by using Schauder's fixed point theorem.

In this paper a new approach to planning of Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMSs) is discussed. This approach takes advantage of FMS features and is based on linking of machining and assembling operations. There are two problems embedded in the presented approach: station loading and operation scheduling. A formulation of a station loading problem for a single machining period is presented. Some of the computational results are also discussed.