Collaborative robots are mechanisms that can be safely operated next to people without the need for safety barriers.

San Jose, California - Precise Automation announces that, multiple OEM's have recognized the PF400 as the world's first collaborative SCARA robot. Collaborative robots are mechanisms that can be safely operated next to people without the need for safety barriers. The PF400 is intrinsically safe since all of the forces generated by its axes are limited so that the robot cannot hurt a user even if it collides with them at full speed. Currently, hundreds of PF400's are in daily use in bench-top laboratory applications without safety barriers.

This low-cost, quiet OEM mechanism has its motion controller, harnesses and power supplies embedded within its structure to eliminate extra enclosures and simplify installation. This space saving design, together with a novel geometry, allows the PF400 to service many stations in an extremely small work cell. Combined with absolute encoder motors, which do not require any motion to home during start-up, and the collaborative aspects of the robot, which eliminate the need for shielding, the PF400 significantly reduces workspace requirements, greatly reducing the size and cost of an automated cell. The lightweight PF400 can be carried by one person, mounted on a table and, by plugging in just an AC power cord and an Ethernet cable, is ready to operate.

All Precise Automation mechanisms feature the powerful embedded Precise Guidance Motion Controller. This controller offers gravity balanced free mode teaching aids and excellent capabilities for automatically generating elegant and reliable motion sequences. Its features permit the mechanism's gripper to move along smooth, straight line paths or arbitrarily complex motion sequences by simply moving the robot by hand to start and end positions and letting the controller handle the rest. Combined with a simple, yet powerful programming language, Ethernet interface (featuring PC control via an open source TCP/IP Command Server), kinematics for Cartesian motions, an embedded web server that permits the robot to be operated locally via a standard browser executed on a PC, a wireless tablet or remotely from anywhere in the world, the PF400 simplifies programming and reduces cycle times with the most efficient motions possible. When machine vision is needed, Precise Vision can easily be added to the robot as an option.

Brian Powell, Vice President of Sales and Operations, states, "Due to its revolutionary combination of safety, capabilities and performance, the PF400 is currently being employed in environments where automation could never go before: working side-by-side with human counterparts on an assembly line, on desktops of analytical labs and soon in clinical diagnostic environments."

ABOUT PRECISE AUTOMATION INC.

Precise Automation delivers cutting edge automation technology and leverages years of experience in software, controls, electronic and mechanical design that assists end users and OEM customers to automate with ease. Precise's versatile table-top robots and sample handlers come fully assembled and are extremely easy to set up. Our low-cost vision-guided motion controllers integrate motor drives in a very compact design that fit inside many mechanisms' structures. The controller's powerful features allow OEM's to create the applications they want and to produce user-friendly systems. Adding vision guidance simplifies complex problems in locating and identifying parts and significantly improves process reliability by easily accommodating to dimensional variances. Precise Automation's flexible and innovative products serve a wide variety of industries including: electronics, semiconductor, life science, medical products and mass storage.