ST Robotics
Encyclopedia
ST Robotics is a twin company based in Cambridge
, England
, and Princeton
, New Jersey
, USA. The company designs and manufactures low-cost bench-top industrial robot arms and purpose built Cartesian robots. The company has no sales force and sells their robotic arm products purely through the Internet as "boxed robots".
BASIC
and would run on any of the popular makes of computers of the time such as Apple
(Apple II series
), Acorn Electron
, Atari
, BBC Micro
or the Commodore Pet
. The robot competed with others in that market like the Armdroid. As the language Forth became available on these computers, Sands wrote the first version of RoboForth which enabled the robots to run and respond far faster. A version of RoboForth was also written for Armdroid.
In 1984, Intelligent Artefacts was closed down and a new company formed, also in Cambridge, called Cyber Robotics who sold a redesigned arm known as the Cyber 310. The Cyber 310 had a 5 degrees of freedom (DOF) ability. Hundreds of them were sold around the world between 1981 and 1987. The robot arm was adopted in 1987 by Mike Topping as the basis for the Handy 1, a robotic helper for the severely disabled. Cyber Robotics was bought by the Bibby Corporation in 1982 and it was eventually closed due to lack of sales.
During the period that Intelligent Artifacts was in operation, many inquiries were received for more serious and professional uses of robot arms for which the Cyber 310 was not suitable. This alerted Sands to the potential for manufacturing a bench–top robot arm series, some of which already existed, notably the Zymark
.
Sands Technology was formed in 1985 and in 1986 a shell company was created, Imagecroft Ltd
. The company began to manufacture robot arms, such as the R12 Mk1, R15 and R16, which were used in applications from laboratory work in DNA processing to decommissioning nuclear reactors.
In 1989, David Sands met Mathew Monforte in New Jersey and the pair decided to expand the company for the American market in 1991 and Sands Technology International was incorporated in New Jersey in 1992. The less personal pseudonym of ST Robotics was coined in 1995 under which both companies now trade.
The ST robot controller uses two processors: one to run the RoboForth programming language and a digital signal processor
(DSP) to control the motors. The DSP is able to control all axes collectively with individual axes ramping up or down as necessary for a compound motion. At the same time it reads back the encoders data and passes this information to the CPU which also uses the DSP's timers.
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and Princeton
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, USA. The company designs and manufactures low-cost bench-top industrial robot arms and purpose built Cartesian robots. The company has no sales force and sells their robotic arm products purely through the Internet as "boxed robots".
History
In 1982, David Sands formed the company Intelligent Artefacts which was based in Cambridge, England. One of its products was educational robot arms. The arms were programmed in the programming languageProgramming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
BASIC
BASIC
BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
and would run on any of the popular makes of computers of the time such as Apple
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
(Apple II series
Apple II series
The Apple II series is a set of 8-bit home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977 with the original Apple II...
), Acorn Electron
Acorn Electron
The Acorn Electron is a budget version of the BBC Micro educational/home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd. It has 32 kilobytes of RAM, and its ROM includes BBC BASIC along with its operating system....
, Atari
Atari Corporation
Atari Corporation was a manufacturer of computers and video game consoles from 1984 to 1996. Atari Corp. was founded in July of 1984 when Warner Communications sold the home computing and game console divisions of Atari to Jack Tramiel. Its chief products were the Atari ST, Atari XE, Atari 7800,...
, BBC Micro
BBC Micro
The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation...
or the Commodore Pet
Commodore PET
The Commodore PET was a home/personal computer produced from 1977 by Commodore International...
. The robot competed with others in that market like the Armdroid. As the language Forth became available on these computers, Sands wrote the first version of RoboForth which enabled the robots to run and respond far faster. A version of RoboForth was also written for Armdroid.
In 1984, Intelligent Artefacts was closed down and a new company formed, also in Cambridge, called Cyber Robotics who sold a redesigned arm known as the Cyber 310. The Cyber 310 had a 5 degrees of freedom (DOF) ability. Hundreds of them were sold around the world between 1981 and 1987. The robot arm was adopted in 1987 by Mike Topping as the basis for the Handy 1, a robotic helper for the severely disabled. Cyber Robotics was bought by the Bibby Corporation in 1982 and it was eventually closed due to lack of sales.
During the period that Intelligent Artifacts was in operation, many inquiries were received for more serious and professional uses of robot arms for which the Cyber 310 was not suitable. This alerted Sands to the potential for manufacturing a bench–top robot arm series, some of which already existed, notably the Zymark
Caliper Life Sciences
Caliper, A PerkinElmer Company is based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts with direct sales, service and application-support operations in countries around the globe...
.
Sands Technology was formed in 1985 and in 1986 a shell company was created, Imagecroft Ltd
Limited company
A limited company is a company in which the liability of the members or subscribers of the company is limited to what they have invested or guaranteed to the company. Limited companies may be limited by shares or by guarantee. And the former of these, a limited company limited by shares, may be...
. The company began to manufacture robot arms, such as the R12 Mk1, R15 and R16, which were used in applications from laboratory work in DNA processing to decommissioning nuclear reactors.
In 1989, David Sands met Mathew Monforte in New Jersey and the pair decided to expand the company for the American market in 1991 and Sands Technology International was incorporated in New Jersey in 1992. The less personal pseudonym of ST Robotics was coined in 1995 under which both companies now trade.
Technology
ST Robotics uses technology which is based on stepping motors as opposed to the more usual DC servo motors. For some years the technology had problems from lack of power and motor resonance. These problems were solved with the advent of rare–earth hybrid motors, high voltage micro-stepping drives and incremental encoder feedback. The robots calibrate themselves by driving each axis slowly to a target sensed by a proximity detector. Incremental optical encoders then track along with the motors to check for errors. This is called closed loop control which differs from servo control in that the stepping motors run essentially an open loop — the loop is only closed at the end of each movement of the arm. ST’s latest arm, the R12 Mk2, has the encoders only as an option.The ST robot controller uses two processors: one to run the RoboForth programming language and a digital signal processor
Digital signal processor
A digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor with an architecture optimized for the fast operational needs of digital signal processing.-Typical characteristics:...
(DSP) to control the motors. The DSP is able to control all axes collectively with individual axes ramping up or down as necessary for a compound motion. At the same time it reads back the encoders data and passes this information to the CPU which also uses the DSP's timers.