Languages for Programming Robots

Robots are already in widespread use in factories through the world, and their numbers and types are rapidly increasing. The ways in which they are used is also diversifying: the so called first generation robots were mainly used for large batch repetitive tasks, where the expense of setting up the work place to eliminate significant variation in the presentation of the work pieces could be justified by the subsequent usefulness of the installation for that particular task. The programming of the robot represented only a small effort in relation to the total effort needed in setting up the system, and only a short time in relation to the working life of the program. The emphasis in the first generation of robots was therefore on the mechanics of the manipulators.