A robot is a mechatronic system that exhibits movement in space that mimics human behavior. The Robotic Industries Association defines the industrial robot as: "A reprogrammable, multi-functional machine designed to manipulate material, parts, tools or specialized devices through variable programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks."

Robots are used in many industries such as auto making, machining, food packaging, electronics assembly, healthcare, and law enforcement, to mention a few. Robots perform an untold number of functions including welding, painting, machine tending, placing products in packages, palletizing, assisting is surgery, remote surveillance, hazardous exploration, game playing and on and on.

Robots move in 3-space by various means, all of which depend upon the principles of multi-axis motion control and mechatronics. In addition, robots often utilize some sort of gripper that may have additional axes of motion available to it in order to orient material once it arrives at some location in space. Many robots utilizemachinevision to identify parts and their orientation and will adapt their movements based upon what they "see".

The first industrial robot was reportedly installed in 1961 in a New Jersey General Motors plant. The Japanese soon took the lead in robotics and maintain that lead today. The US has been slower to adopt robots in its operations than many parts of the industrialized world.

Robots are playing a much more significant role in packaging. Projections indicate that within the next 5 years, 40% of all packaging lines will utilize robots.

Most robots in use today are general-purpose, stand-alone machines integrated into the particular operation that they are serving. An emerging trend is to custom build robot functionality and embed this functionality into machines where hard automation would previously have been employed. This purpose-built robotic functionality is becoming more common as core patents expire and as mechatronic capabilities are enhanced with increasing levels of computing power and standardized software routines.

Read more about robots and robotics at Wikipedia or watch industrial robot videos on You Tube.

In the picture above, a delta-style robot picks up pretzels, orients them and places them into a conveyor pocket for packaging.