Choosing materials is one of the most important decisions when designing and building a machine such as a robot, particularly one that moves around, like an autonomous warehouse robot or an automated guided vehicle.
Most of the machines this website features in its articles and advertising use metals for the vast majority of their components. Even the outer casing on most industrial robots tends to be a metal such as iron or steel.
However, according to an expert at Celanese, one of the largest materials companies in the world, the vast majority of components and parts that are currently made out of metal can actually be replaced with polymers or thermoplastics. [Read more…] about Celanese suggests replacing metal parts in robots with polymers
