All courses › Robotics › Robot Configurations

Robot Configurations

Different robot types suit different tasks. An articulated arm has the most degrees of freedom and is very flexible, a SCARA is stiff vertically and compliant horizontally and therefore fast at pick-and-place in a plane, while a Cartesian (gantry) robot has straight, independent axes that make it simple to control accurately.

SCARA: fast pick-and-place in a plane\text{SCARA: fast pick-and-place in a plane}typical use case
Cartesian: straight axes, high accuracy\text{Cartesian: straight axes, high accuracy}typical use case

Symbols

RRrevolute joint (rotates)
PPprismatic joint (slides linearly)

Example

An RRR arm has three revolute joints, all rotating:

A typical articulated-arm configuration.

More degrees of freedom is not always better – a SCARA is often faster and cheaper for a planar task.
Practise robot systems for free →

← Jacobian and Singularity · Encoders →

Part of Robotics: Robot systems.