What is SCARA robot? Background and advantages
SCARA robots are one of the most popular and easy-to-use industrial robotic arms. They are commonly used in various industries, typically for manufacturing and assembly applications.
What do you need to know when using SCARA robots?
What is the history of this type of robot?
Why are they so popular?
The name SCARA represents the ability to choose a compliant assembly robotic arm, which refers to the robot's ability to move freely on three axes while maintaining stiffness while complying on the last axis. This type of flexibility makes them very suitable for tasks such as picking and placing, sorting, and assembling.
Let's take a closer look at the history of these robots so that you can understand how to better use them in your process.
Who invented the SCARA robot?
SCARA robots have a long history of collaboration. In 1977, Professor Hiroshi Makino from Yamanashi University attended the International Symposium on Industrial Robotics held in Tokyo, Japan. In this event, he witnessed a revolutionary invention - the SIGMA assembly robot.
Inspired by the first assembly robot, Makino established the SCARA Robot Alliance, which includes 13 Japanese companies. The purpose of this alliance is to further improve assembly robots through specialized research.
In 1978, one year later, the alliance quickly completed the first prototype of the SCARA robot. They tested on a series of industrial applications, further improved the design, and released the second version two years later.
When the first commercial SCARA robot was released in 1981, it was hailed as a pioneering robot design. It has a very favorable cost-effectiveness and has changed industrial production processes around the world.
What is SCARA robot and its working principle
SCARA robots typically have four axes. They have two parallel arms that can move within a plane. The last axis is at right angles to the other axes and is smooth.
Due to their simple design, these robots can move quickly while always maintaining accuracy and precision. Therefore, they are very suitable for performing detailed assembly tasks.
They are easy to program because inverse kinematics is much simpler than 6-degree-of-freedom industrial robotic arms. The fixed positions of their joints also make them easier to predict, as the positions in the robot workspace can only be approached from one direction.
SCARA is very versatile and can simultaneously improve productivity, accuracy, and task speed.
Advantages of using SCARA robots
SCARA robots have many advantages, especially in large-scale production applications.
Compared to traditional robot types such as robotic arms, their simple design helps to provide faster cycle time, impressive positioning accuracy, and high repeatability. They work well in small environments where precision is the highest requirement for robots.
These robots excel in areas that require precise, fast, and stable picking and placement operations. Therefore, they are very popular in applications such as electronic assembly and food manufacturing.
They are also easy to program, especially if you use RoboDK as robot programming software. Our robot library includes dozens of popular SCARA robots.
Disadvantages of using SCARA robots
There are still some drawbacks to consider for SCARA robots.
Although they are fast, their payload is often limited. The maximum payload of SCARA robots can lift about 30-50 kilograms, while some 6-axis industrial robot arms can reach up to 2000 kilograms.
Another potential drawback of SCARA robots is that their workspace is limited. This means that the size of the operations they can handle, as well as the flexibility in the direction in which they can handle tasks, will limit you.
Despite these drawbacks, this type of robot is still suitable for a wide range of tasks.
Why is it a good time to consider buying SCARA now
Why consider using SCARA robots now?
If this type of robot is suitable for your needs, it is definitely an economical and highly flexible choice.
If you use RoboDK to program your robot, you can also continue to benefit from the continuous updates of RoboDK, which better improve SCARA programming.
We have recently improved the inverse kinematics solver (RKSCARA) for SCARA robots. This allows you to easily reverse any axis when using such robots, allowing you to easily invert or install the robot in another direction while ensuring that the programming process is not more complicated.
No matter how you program SCARA robots, if you are looking for a compact, high-speed, and high-precision robot, they are all the best robots.
How to choose the appropriate SCARA robot according to your needs
Choosing the right SCARA robot may be difficult because there are various refreshing products on the market now.
It is important to take some time to ensure that you have a clear understanding of the requirements before deciding to choose a specific model. If you choose the wrong model, their cost-effectiveness advantage will be reduced.
Through RoboDK, you can test multiple SCARA models in the software before determining specific models. All you need to do is download the model you are considering from our robot online library and test it on your application model.
SCARA robots have many great uses, and it is worthwhile to be familiar with the types of applications they are most suitable for.
Post time: Mar-06-2024
