ABB's wireless proximity switch increases reliability of manufacturing cells.(ABB Automation Products )

Control Engineering Europe, September, 2002

* For many years ABB has been the market leader in industrial robots. With help from state-of-the-art sensors and machine vision, and more advanced controllers, robots have gradually become more `intelligent' in their actions. They can `see' and `feel' the objects they are dealing with and react to them.

However these `eyes' of industrial robots have one major drawback: they require extensive cabling. Cables have to be fitted for each sensor's power supply and signal transmission, and, with up to 20 sensors on a robot, this drives up the cost for engineering, assembly, and commissioning. Robots and complex assembly machines sometimes need modifying to customer requirements up until their completion and this can prove to be particularly expensive due to...

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