Page 10 - Industrial Technology EXTRA - 22nd June 2020
P. 10
CARTESIAN ROBOTS...
To CNC or to PLC: that is
no longer the question
Barry Weller, product manager at Mitsubishi Electric, looks at how to
simplify the control architecture of cartesian coordinate robots
n order to remain competitive, it is generally both PLCs and computer numerical controllers
accepted that industries should adopt lean (CNCs) in order to fully manage movement within
manufacturing strategies to improve process the machine – until now.
Iefficiency. A key action can be to reduce part Cartesian coordinate robots are widely used to
count, i.e. the number of components in an automate machine functions such as mechanical,
assembly or system. This is particularly challenging laser or plasma cutting – quickly delivering high-
when it comes to highly accurate cartesian quality items that are consistent and can be highly
coordinate (linear) motion applications. In these customised. While a cartesian coordinate robot and
cases, machine builders would often need to use a CNC (computer numerical control) machine are
June 2020 • INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY EXTRA! • p10
