Towards Automated Welding in Big Shipbuilding Assisted by Programed Robotic Arm Using a Measuring Arm
This paper presents an automated robotic welding system adapted for shipbuilding in large shipyards. This solution has been devised in the shipyard of Navantia located in the south of Spain, in the context of ROBOT FASE II R&D project. It also presents the human teams that have developed this welding system. The article explains the 3 parts that make up the welding system. The location of the robotic welding arm of the Fanuc brand is detailed in the first part. In addition, the gantry and spatial coordinate axes are described and indicated where the robotic arm is housed. The second part contains the system capture of the coordinates in the space for the reading of the singular points to be soldered. These points are measured by a portable measuring arm. The last part is composed of the system of communication between the different parts throughout the computer. The computer is responsible for synchronizing the measuring arm and the robotic welding arm by translating the points to be soldered.
Robotization in Korea: Trend and implications for industrial development
Abstract This paper presents the result of our survey on the robotization in Korea as a typical case of newly industrializing countries (NICs), which have recently succeeded in promoting their export-led growth. The survey itself is the first effort in collecting detailed information on the degree of robotization, and its effects and impacts on the competitiveness of the modern industries in the developing countries. In contrast to the conventional hypothesis that the major factor of increased competitiveness of the NICs industries is their cheap labour cost, our survey has revealed that the borrowed technology and know-how embodied in the imported robots are playing crucial role to improve their competitiveness by upgrading the quality and confidence of the products, and by increasing the flexibility of the production lines. In short, the developing countries which have otherwise been stagnant in permanent backwardness of technology could easily step up to produce the products of same quality as high as the advanced countries, especially in automobile and semiconductor industries.
History, criminology and the ‘use’ of the past
This article considers why, despite an apparent congruence of subject matter and methodologies, the disciplines of sociological criminology and criminal justice history are not more closely aligned. It contends that intellectual traffic between the two fields is not usually limited by institutional barriers, nor is it a legacy of the disciplinary antipathy which existed between history and sociology in Britain during the mid-twentieth century. Rather, it is due to the different ‘purposes’ with which sociological criminologists and criminal justice historians imbue their work and to the differing disciplinary perceptions of the relationship between the past, present and future which result from this. These different ‘purposes’ are traced via a consideration of the paths of development of the two disciplines from the 1940s. The article concludes by proposing an arena for future collaboration between criminal justice historians and sociological criminologists.