Fundamentals of Robotics and Automation

Course Description

Fundamentals of Robotics and Automation is an introductory course addressing basic principles of robotics and automation, including basic robotics concepts, operation, classification and applications in industrial automation, and providing an overview of automated manufacturing systems.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, ETS is the Engineering Technology Specialised prefix and the C suffix marks a combined lecture-and-laboratory course. Daytona State publishes this at 3 credits, offered spring, with EET1011C and MAC1105 as prerequisites. ⚠ The single term of offering is worth planning around.

An industrial robot is not intelligent and that is the most important thing to understand about it. It executes a programme with great precision, great force, and no awareness whatsoever of what is in its way. It will move to the commanded position through whatever is between it and that position, including a person — which is why the safety content below is not an appendix to this course but the foundation of it.

Daytona State does not publish a lecture and laboratory split for this course. The C-suffixed courses in these prefixes run consistently at 20 contact hours per credit — ETD2320C at 4 credits and 80 hours, and ETD2364C, ETS2542C and ETS3543C all at 3 credits and 60 — while the unsuffixed lecture courses run at 15 (ETG2520 and EGN3311, both 3 and 45). This course is priced at the C-form convention.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the history and development of industrial robotics.
• Classify robots by configuration and describe each type's characteristics.
• Describe degrees of freedom and the work envelope.
• Describe robot kinematics at an introductory level.
• Describe end effectors and select an appropriate gripper or tool.
• Describe actuators and drive systems used in robots.
• Describe sensors used in robotic and automated systems.
• Describe machine vision and its applications.
• Describe robot control systems and their architecture.
• Programme a robot using teach pendant methods.
• Describe offline and simulation-based programming.
• Define and use coordinate frames and tool centre points.
• Describe motion types and path planning.
• Integrate a robot with peripheral equipment and signals.
• Describe automated manufacturing systems and cells.
• Describe material handling and conveying in automated systems.
• Describe programmable logic controllers and their role in automation.
• Describe industrial communication and networking at an introductory level.
• Describe robot safety standards and the required safeguards.
• Describe safeguarding devices and their correct application.
• Apply lockout/tagout in a robotic work cell.
• Describe collaborative robots and the conditions for collaborative operation.
• Justify automation economically.
• Describe the workforce implications of automation honestly.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe advanced robot kinematics and dynamics.
• Describe mobile robots and autonomous vehicles.
• Describe force control and compliance.
• Describe robotic welding and painting applications.
• Describe industrial internet and data collection from automated systems.
• Obtain a manufacturer robot programming certification.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• History and development
• Robot classification and configurations
• Degrees of freedom and work envelope
• Introductory kinematics
• End effectors and grippers
• Actuators and drives
• Sensors
• Machine vision
• Control architecture
• Teach pendant programming
• Offline and simulation programming
• Coordinate frames and tool centre points
• Motion types and path planning
• Integration with peripherals
• Automated manufacturing cells
• Material handling and conveying
• Programmable logic controllers
• Industrial communication
• Robot safety standards
• Safeguarding devices
• Lockout/tagout in a cell
• Collaborative robots
• Economic justification
• Workforce implications

Optional Topics

• Advanced kinematics and dynamics
• Mobile and autonomous robots
• Force control and compliance
• Welding and painting applications
• Industrial data collection
• Manufacturer certification

Resources & Tools

• Your own calculator and a systematic solution format — given, find, assumptions, working, answer with units, sanity check. Adopting one format now is worth more than any single technique in these courses.
• ABET (abet.org) — free accreditation lookup; check which commission accredits your programme before assuming a licensure pathway.
• NCEES (ncees.org) — free information on the FE and PE examinations and state-by-state requirements; the FE reference handbook is free and is a superb formula reference for these courses.
• Florida Board of Professional Engineers (fbpe.org) — free; the authority on Florida licensure.
• Engineering Toolbox and NIST reference data — free property tables and unit conversions; verify anything critical against a primary source.
• Professional societies — ASME, IEEE, ASHRAE, IISE, and ASQ all offer inexpensive student membership, standards access, and local chapter meetings where employers recruit.
• Your programme's laboratory and your instructors — the equipment time is the part you cannot get elsewhere, and it is already paid for.
• Internships and co-op placements — the single strongest predictor of employment at graduation in this field. Start looking a year before you think you should.
• ANSI/RIA R15.06 and the ISO 10218 series — the industrial robot safety standards; know that they exist and what they require before you work near a robot.
• OSHA's robotics safety guidance (osha.gov) — free, and built on actual incident investigations.
• Robot manufacturers' training and simulation software (FANUC, ABB, KUKA, Universal Robots) — several offer free or educational-licence offline programming environments; practising in simulation costs nothing and is genuinely hireable experience.
• A3 — the Association for Advancing Automation (automate.org) — industry body, standards, and job listings.

Career Pathways

• Mechanical engineering technologist and technician — SOC 17-3027.
• Electrical and electronic engineering technologist and technician — SOC 17-3023.
• Industrial engineering technologist and technician — SOC 17-3026.
• Manufacturing and production engineering support — process improvement, tooling, and quality.
• Quality engineering and inspection — SOC 51-9061 at technician level, rising into quality engineering.
• Maintenance and reliability engineering — consistently in demand and under-applied for.
• Controls, automation, and systems integration — among the best paid technical work available without a four-year engineering degree.
• Utilities and power — a substantial Florida sector, with generation, transmission, and distribution employment plus storm restoration work.
• Aerospace, defence, and space — Florida's Space Coast is one of the densest concentrations of this work in the country; ⚠ many roles require U.S. citizenship and some a security clearance.
• Theme park and attraction engineering — a genuine and distinctive Florida employer of mechanical, controls, and maintenance engineering talent.
• Building systems, HVAC, and energy management — steady work with a strong Florida market.
• Continue to a bachelor's or a graduate degree — Daytona State's engineering technology bachelor's programmes are the direct route, and see the licensure note about what that degree does and does not qualify you for.
• Robotics and automation technician — the direct target, and in strong demand.
• Controls technician and controls engineer — PLC and robot integration; among the best-paid technical work available without a four-year engineering degree.
• Systems integration — integrators design and build automated cells and hire heavily.
• Automated warehouse and distribution systems — a rapidly growing Florida employer.

Special Information

⚠⚠ Never be inside the work envelope of an energised robot — this is the whole safety rule

• An industrial robot moves fast, with substantial force, along paths that are not always intuitive — and a robot at rest is not a robot that has stopped; it may simply be waiting for a signal.
• ⚠⚠ The recorded fatalities and serious injuries overwhelmingly involve someone inside the work envelope during maintenance, teaching, clearing a jam, or troubleshooting — not during normal automatic operation. The hazard is concentrated exactly where people think the risk is lower.
• Apply lockout/tagout before entering for any work that does not require motion, and control the lock yourself.
• Where you must teach or troubleshoot with the robot live, use reduced speed, the enabling device, and the documented procedure — and have a second person outside the cell.
• ⚠ Understand what the robot will do next. A programme resuming from an unexpected point can move in a direction nobody anticipated — a robot returning to its home position is a classic injury scenario.
• Safeguarding is engineered, not improvised: interlocked guarding, light curtains, area scanners, and pressure mats each have correct applications and defeatable failure modes. Defeating an interlock is a dismissible act and it has killed people.
• Know where every emergency stop is and confirm it functions before working in a cell.
• ⚠⚠ A collaborative robot is not automatically safe. Safety depends on the whole application — speed, force, the tool it carries, and what it is handling. A collaborative arm holding a knife, a hot part, or a heavy load is not a collaborative application, and a risk assessment is required regardless.
• Stored energy applies here too: pneumatics, gravity on a vertical axis, and springs can all move an arm after power is removed. Support the axis before working under it.
• Never assume the programme is what you think it is. Verify before you energise.

⚠ Automate the right thing — and be honest about the workforce question

• Automating a bad process makes bad output faster. Fix and stabilise the process first; this is the most common and most expensive automation mistake.
• Justify it properly. Count integration, programming, tooling, training, maintenance, and downtime — the robot's price is frequently a minority of the project cost.
• Automate the dull, dirty, and dangerous first. Those cases justify themselves on safety as well as cost and meet the least resistance.
• Design for changeover and product variation. A cell that only handles today's product becomes an obstacle when the product changes.
• Plan for maintenance and failure. An automated line that cannot be run manually stops completely when the cell stops.
• ⚠ Be straight about employment effects. Automation changes and displaces work, and pretending otherwise damages the credibility of everyone involved. The honest account is that it removes some tasks, creates others requiring different skills, and that the transition falls unevenly on real people — and that engineers have some responsibility in how it is handled.
• Involve the operators. They know the failure modes, the workarounds, and the reasons the "obvious" approach will not work — and their cooperation determines whether the installation succeeds.
• Retraining is the useful response, and the people who know the process best are frequently the best candidates to run and maintain the automation.

⚠⚠ Engineering laboratories store energy — that is the hazard in one phrase

• Loaded specimens, pressurised systems, charged capacitors, energised circuits, springs, and rotating masses all hold energy that can be released suddenly, and almost every serious laboratory injury is a stored-energy release.
• ⚠ A test specimen under load is dangerous at the moment it fails. Fracture releases stored elastic energy and can throw fragments — stay behind the guard, use eye protection, and never lean over a loaded machine.
• Assume rotating machinery will catch anything loose. Long hair tied back, no loose clothing, no gloves near rotating equipment, no jewellery.
• Eye protection every time in the laboratory, not only while you personally are testing. Other people's work is the usual source.
• ⚠ Verify de-energisation before touching anything electrical, and lock out where lockout applies. A capacitor can hold a lethal charge after power is removed.
• Know where the emergency stop, the main disconnect, and the first aid kit are in every laboratory you work in, before you need them.
• Do not operate equipment you have not been trained on, and do not work alone in a laboratory.
• Follow the procedure exactly, and stop when something is unexpected. Improvising a test setup is how equipment is destroyed and people are hurt.
• Report every incident and near miss. A near miss is free information about a hazard that has not hurt anyone yet.

⚠⚠ An engineering answer is a number, a unit, and a judgement about whether it is plausible

• A number without units is not an answer, and unit errors are the single most common source of catastrophic engineering mistakes — including ones that have destroyed spacecraft.
• Carry units through the calculation rather than adding them at the end. If the units do not come out right, the working is wrong, and this catches errors nothing else will.
• ⚠ Sanity-check every result. Ask whether the magnitude is plausible before writing it down — a beam deflecting three metres or a pump drawing a megawatt is telling you something, and the software will not.
• Estimate first, then calculate. An order-of-magnitude estimate made before the analysis is the cheapest error check available.
• Know your assumptions and state them. Every analysis rests on idealisations — rigid bodies, incompressible flow, linear elasticity — and the failures happen where an assumption stopped being true and nobody noticed.
• Significant figures are a claim about precision. Reporting eight digits from a measurement good to two is a misrepresentation, not thoroughness.
• ⚠ Software output is not verification. Analysis packages return confident, well-formatted answers to badly posed problems — you are responsible for the model, the inputs, and whether the result makes sense.
• Show the working. An answer nobody can check is not usable engineering, and in professional practice it is not acceptable.
• Say when you are unsure. Flagging a doubt is what a competent engineer does; concealing it is how failures propagate.

⚠ Engineering technology and professional engineering licensure in Florida

• Engineering practice is regulated in Florida under Chapter 471, Florida Statutes, through the Board of Professional Engineers and FBPE. Offering engineering services to the public and sealing engineering documents require a professional engineer licence.
• ⚠⚠ Engineering technology and engineering are different educational pathways, and the distinction matters for licensure. Licensure routes are built around programmes accredited by ABET, and ABET accredits engineering and engineering technology under separate commissions with different criteria.
• ⚠ A degree in engineering technology may not qualify a graduate for PE licensure on the same terms as an engineering degree, and in some states not at all. Requirements differ by state and they change.
• If professional licensure is your goal, establish the route before you enrol — ask FBPE directly, ask the programme what its graduates have actually done, and get the answer in writing. This is the same unrecoverable trap this repository records for allied health accreditation, and it is discovered just as late.
• The industry exemption matters in practice. A great deal of engineering work performed inside a manufacturing company does not require a licence, which is why many engineering technology graduates have full technical careers without one.
• Certification is a separate and useful route — NICET, ASQ, and manufacturer certifications are recognised by employers and do not depend on the degree's accreditation category.
• ⚠ Rule 11 applies. Licensure requirements, accreditation criteria, and reciprocity between states all change — verify with FBPE and NCEES rather than relying on this guide.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement — and it is live in these prefixes, since Daytona State offers both associate-level and bachelor of science in engineering technology coursework in them.

ETS2540C is a combined lecture-and-laboratory course, published at 3 credits and approximately 60 contact hours, offered spring only at Daytona State.

See this repository's ETS2542C and ETS3543C guides for the programmable logic controller sequence, which pairs directly with this material.