By Graham K. Rogers

Epson Corporation, a leader in the development and sale of Selective Compliant Assembly Robot Arms (SCARA) have announced a new series of horizontally articulated robot arms. Designated the H8 series, they are an advance on the current H6 series SCARA robots.

The units have arm lengths of 450mm, 550mm and 650mm and are designed for automated tasks in the areas of assembly and transport. Each is capable of handling up to 8 Kg, up from the 6 Kg that the H6 series could handle and are also some 40% faster.

As before, the robots in the H series use Epson's Smart Motion Control technology, enabling them to work at high speed without significant vibration. In addition the new devices use high-performance quartz sensors, microfabricated in a crystalline material on a wafer: Epson has coined the term, QMEMS to indicate Quartz and micro electro-mechanical systems.

More information about these and other devices for use in industrial applications is available from the Epson Corporation Robot pages.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.