What Is Inside the Manipulator? Analysis of Structural Types of Parts

When it comes to robots, what everyone should think of should be what is shown in the picture above.

So, what's the inside of the manipulator and what's the secret? Let's share the main structure of pneumatic manipulator.

1 Structure of each part of manipulator

Structure of each part of manipulator

1. Swing cylinder 2. Positioning bolt 3. Pneumatic claw 4, 6, 9. Magnetic switch 5. Standard cylinder 7. Throttle valve 8. Duplex cylinder 10. Proximity switch 11. Buffer valve 12. Support

The manipulator is composed of multiple links and joints. The manipulator is generally composed of base, actuator, such as clamp, suction cup, etc., as well as the joints and connecting rods between them. The manipulator can realize arbitrary movement and steering within its range of motion. We generally call the movable joints as degrees of freedom.

Types of gas circuit components

The air circuit components involved in the pneumatic manipulator mainly include swing cylinder, duplex cylinder, pen cylinder and air source processing components.

Air source treatment assembly

Air source treatment assembly

The air source processing assembly is composed of a pressure regulating filter, an air inlet switch and an elbow. The air source is provided by the air compressor, the pressure range is 0.6 1.0MPa, and the output pressure is 0 0.8MPa, which can be adjusted. The output compressed air is sent to each working unit.

Pen cylinder

Pen cylinder

The material is sent to the corresponding position through the reciprocating motion of the cylinder. If the direction of inlet and outlet air changes, the direction of movement of the cylinder will also change. Magnetic switches on both sides of the cylinder are mainly used to track whether the cylinder has moved to the specified position.

Double coil solenoid valve

Double coil solenoid valve

The double coil solenoid valve mainly controls the air inlet and outlet of the cylinder to realize the telescopic movement of the cylinder. Pay attention to the positive and negative poles of the red indicator. If the positive and negative poles are connected reversely, it can also work, but the indicator is off.

Single coil solenoid valve

Single coil solenoid valve

The single coil solenoid valve controls the single direction movement of the cylinder to realize the telescopic movement. The difference from the double coil solenoid valve is that the initial position of the double coil solenoid valve is not fixed and can arbitrarily control two positions, while the initial position of the single coil solenoid valve is fixed and can only control one direction.

Action analysis of pneumatic components

Schematic diagram of gripper control

The manipulator detects its own state, such as speed, position and acceleration, through the internal sensor of the sensor, so as to realize the interaction between itself and environmental information, such as distance, temperature and pressure. The environmental information is detected by external sensors. Next, the controller selects the corresponding environment mode to command the manipulator to complete the task.

The sensors used inside the manipulator mainly include the following:

1. Photoelectric sensor

Photoelectric sensor

Principle: diffuse emission occurs after the detection light emitted by the transmitter irradiates the measured object. After the receiver receives strong enough reflected light, the photoelectric switch starts to act.

2. Inductive proximity switch

Inductive proximity switch

Principle: there is an oscillator in the inductive proximity switch, which can generate alternating magnetic field. When the induction distance reaches a certain range, eddy current will be generated in the metal target, so as to weaken the oscillation intensity. The changes of oscillator oscillation and stop vibration are processed by the later amplification circuit and finally converted into switching signal.

3. Cylinder piston in place detection - magnetic switch

Magnetic switch

Principle: after the cylinder piston with magnetic ring moves to the specified position, the two metal sheets in the magnetic switch are closed under the action of magnetic field, and the trigger signal is generated.

4 Working principle of Pneumatic Manipulator

working principle

Pneumatic manipulator is mainly composed of control system, driving system, actuator and position detection system. Under the control of PLC program, the action of actuator is realized through pneumatic transmission.

The information of the control system transmits the command to the actuator to track the action of the manipulator. If there is an error or fault in the action, it will give an alarm immediately.

The actual position of the actuator is transmitted to the control system by the position detection device, and finally the actuator is moved to the specified position with a certain accuracy.