The Jacobian of serial robot-arms is examined, and the matrix of cofactors of a singular Jacobian is presented as a means of explaining the physical nature of special configurations. Because the columns of both these matrices are screw coordinates, screw theory is central to proper understanding. ‘Realistic’ robot-arms are seen to behave in ways that can be explained not by particularizing from a general formulation but rather by carefully interpreting the relevant special screw systems from the outset. Higher singularities (with more than one freedom-loss) are then touched upon.

This paper is concerned with the problem of keeping contact with a fixed object during the motion of a manipulator gripper along the contour of an object, i.e. along a constraint. The theory of the existence and the stability of stationary regimes of motion along a straight line and a circle is studied.

The numerical complexity of robot dynamic models, inverse control structures and decentralized control laws is analyzed in a systematic fashion. Dynamic models of actuators (DC motors and hydraulic cylinders) are taken into account, too. The exact number of floating-point multiplications and additions/subtractions for an n−link manipulator is determined. The results are applied to several typical industrial manipulators. Measuring of computation time for various control structures is realized on an up-to-date 16-bit microcomputer, widely used in robot controllers. Thereby, the real-time applicability and effectively the “price” of different control laws are estimated.

The effective use of robots, FMS systems and other complex modern production equipment demands the deployment of multi-skilled maintenance people. Although this need has been well known for several years, several factors conspire to prevent sufficient appropriate maintenance training schemes being established. Such factors include demarcation problems, deficiencies in management industrial relations competence, and excessive reliance on ‘poaching’ trained people rather than on training. Reasons are adduced why reliance on equipment suppliers for maintenance is likely to prove insufficient.

Robots have a considerable potential of application on the building site; they can adapt to varying tasks, move and interact with environment. The building process may be restructured in such way that a majority of tasks would be performed by 4 configurations of robots: an assembling robot for handling of large structure components, a general purpose robot for interior finishing works, an exterior wall, and a floor finishing robot for finishing of large vertical and horizontal surfaces, respectively. A preliminary feasibility study reveals that such robots may be justified economically, especially under conditions which reduce human productivity or require high quality of work.

Some principles of information processing in the right and left cerebral hemispheres are used to construct effective algorithms for the recognition of handwritten characters and for processing complex grey-level pictures, viz, photographs of human faces. These algorithms reduce to a considerable extent the exhaustive search for pixels being analysed. A quantitative estimate of the thus obtained gain is given.

The dynamics of “simple, redundant robots” are developed. A “redundant” robot is a robot whose degrees of freedom are greater than those needed to perform a given kinetmatic task. A “simple” robot is a robot with all joints being revolute joints with axes perpendicular or parallel to the arm segments. A general formulation, and a solution algorithm, for the “inverse kinematics problem” for such systems, is presented. The solution is obtained using orthogonal complement arrays which in turn are obtained from a “zero-eigenvalues” algorithm. The paper concludes with an assertion that this solution, called the “natural dynamics solution,” is optimal in that it requires the least energy to drive the robot.

This paper briefly describes actual robot level programming languages, focusing on their intrinsic limitations when compared with traditional concurrent programming languages or when used for robotic systems/flexible production workshops programming, and not only for an isolated manipulator control.

To reduce such limitations, a suggestion is made to base the development of robotic programming systems on already existing concurrent languages (Concurrent Pascal, Modula-2), taking into account their built-in extension facilities for fastening the incorporation of (or easy interfacing with) existing packages or products already developed in robotics (robot models, CAD systems, vision systems, etc).

Using such languages as a support base for a robotic station programming environment, with access to different components developed separately, will allow a better understanding of the inter-relations among components and their limitations when faced with an integration perspective.