industrial robot
In plain wordsA programmable robot arm used in factories for jobs such as welding, painting, assembling and moving parts, traditionally working inside a safety cage.
A robot arm, bolted down or carried on a mobile base, that automates industrial work and can be reprogrammed for different jobs; the international robotics vocabulary, ISO 8373, defines it as an 'automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose manipulator' with at least three programmable axes. Common forms are six-axis articulated arms; SCARA robots for fast planar assembly; parallel 'delta' robots for high-speed picking; and Cartesian gantries. Typical applications are welding, painting, machine tending, assembly, packaging and palletizing, led by the automotive and electronics industries. Traditional industrial robots are programmed with a handheld teach pendant or in offline simulation to repeat precise trajectories in fenced cells, relying on fixtures rather than perception; newer systems add machine vision, force sensing and learned graspinggrasping, n.: How a robot picks up and holds an object securely with a gripper or hand: deciding where to put its fingers or suction cup and how hard to squeeze., and collaborative robotscollaborative robot, n.: A robot designed to work safely right next to people without a safety cage, for example by moving gently and stopping at once if it bumps into someone. share space with workers. According to the International Federation of Robotics' World Robotics 2026 report, more than 600,000 industrial robots were installed worldwide in 2025, 59% of them in China, and the operational stock reached a record of about five million.
The plant has 300 industrial robots for welding but still assembles wiring harnesses by hand.
Origin
George Devol filed a patent for 'programmed article transfer' in 1954 (granted 1961) and founded Unimation with Joseph Engelberger; the first Unimate went to work in 1961 at a General Motors plant in Ewing Township, New Jersey, moving and welding die castings. Victor Scheinman's Stanford Arm (1969) pioneered the electrically driven, computer-controlled six-axis design.
Related
- robotrobot, n.: A machine that senses its surroundings, decides what to do and physically acts, moving itself or handling objects, with some independence from a human operator. Factory arms, robot vacuums and self-driving cars are all robots.
- collaborative robotcollaborative robot, n.: A robot designed to work safely right next to people without a safety cage, for example by moving gently and stopping at once if it bumps into someone.
- end effectorend effector, n.: The tool at the end of a robot arm that actually touches the world, such as a gripper, suction cup, welding torch, paint sprayer or robotic hand.
- degrees of freedomdegrees of freedom, n.: The number of independent ways something can move. A robot arm with six motorized joints has six; a free-floating object can slide three ways and turn three ways.
- automationautomation, n.: Using machines or software to do work that people would otherwise do, from factory robots to programs that sort email or write reports.
- manipulationmanipulation, n.: A robot's use of arms, hands or grippers to change the world around it: picking things up, moving, pushing, opening, assembling or using tools.
- mobile robotmobile robot, n.: A robot that travels around by itself — on wheels, tracks, legs, propellers or thrusters — such as a robot vacuum, warehouse cart, delivery robot or planetary rover.
- collaborative robotcollaborative robot, n.: A robot designed to work safely right next to people without a safety cage, for example by moving gently and stopping at once if it bumps into someone.
Sources
- Devol, G. C. (1961). Programmed Article Transfer. US Patent 2,988,237.
- ISO 8373:2021. Robotics — Vocabulary. iso.org/standard/75539.html
Defined in law or standards
ISO 8373:2021, Robotics — Vocabulary (entry 'industrial robot')
Mentioned in
robotrobot, n.: A machine that senses its surroundings, decides what to do and physically acts, moving itself or handling objects, with some independence from a human operator. Factory arms, robot vacuums and self-driving cars are all robots., collaborative robotcollaborative robot, n.: A robot designed to work safely right next to people without a safety cage, for example by moving gently and stopping at once if it bumps into someone., digital twindigital twin, n.: A detailed virtual copy of a real machine, factory, robot or city, kept in sync with live sensor data and used to monitor it, test changes safely and predict problems., mobile robotmobile robot, n.: A robot that travels around by itself — on wheels, tracks, legs, propellers or thrusters — such as a robot vacuum, warehouse cart, delivery robot or planetary rover.