Industrial Robotics Training: A Robot Programming Guide for Beginners

Industrial robotics training teaches you to set up, program and run robot arms safely: jogging, defining tool and work frames, writing motion programs, handling grippers and I/O, and simulating cells offline. The ideas are the same across FANUC, ABB, KUKA, Yaskawa and Universal Robots, and you can learn them free in each vendor's simulator.

In this lesson by Robotic Guyss, the three basic motion types on a Yaskawa robot, joint, linear and circular, are compared, along with what interpolation means. It belongs to the "Jobs, Motion Types and Interpolation" module of the free Yaskawa Motoman course. The same three motion types exist on every brand under different names, which is why it makes a good first lesson.

Types of industrial robot

The International Federation of Robotics tracks how many of each are installed every year in its World Robotics report; our summary of IFR World Robotics 2026 picks out what the figures mean for engineers.

• Articulated robots with six axes are the most common. They reach around obstacles and orient a tool freely, which suits welding, handling and machine tending.
• SCARA robots have four axes and are fast and stiff in the horizontal plane, ideal for small assembly and pick-and-place.
• Delta (parallel) robots hang above a conveyor and pick light items very quickly, as in food packing.
• Cartesian or gantry robots move on linear axes and cover large areas, such as palletising or loading machines from above.
• Collaborative robots (cobots) are designed to work near people within strict limits. See our cobot training guide.

The parts of a robot system

A robot cell is more than the arm. It has the manipulator (the arm), the controller (the cabinet with the drives and the program), the teach pendant (the handheld unit used to jog and program), the end effector (gripper, torch, spindle), safety devices (fences, interlocked doors, light curtains, area scanners) and usually a PLC that coordinates the robot with conveyors and machines.

Coordinate frames

Frames are the idea that separates people who can move a robot from people who can program one.

• World and base frames fix the robot's position in the cell.
• The tool frame, with its tool centre point (TCP), tells the robot where the working point of the tool is and how it is oriented.
• The user frame, called a work object in ABB and a base in KUKA, is attached to the fixture or table.

If you teach points relative to a user frame, you can move the fixture, re-teach three points for the frame, and the whole program follows. If the TCP is wrong, the tool swings around the wrong point whenever it reorients.

Motion types

• Joint motion (FANUC J, ABB MoveJ, KUKA PTP, Yaskawa MOVJ): each axis moves to its target by the quickest route. Fast, but the path is not a straight line.
• Linear motion (L, MoveL, LIN, MOVL): the TCP moves in a straight line. Used for approaches, picks and processes.
• Circular motion (C, MoveC, CIRC, MOVC): an arc through three points.

Each move ends either exactly on the point (FINE on FANUC, fine on ABB) or blended into the next move (CNT, zones, CONT). Blending saves cycle time but means the robot never quite reaches the point, so picks and places need exact stops. Learners also meet singularities, positions where two axes line up and the robot cannot move smoothly in a straight line, which is a reason to check paths in simulation.

Three ways to program a robot

1. Teach pendant programming: jog to each point, record it, and add logic on the pendant. It is how most programs are started and nearly all are adjusted.
2. Offline programming: build the cell in a simulator, create paths from CAD, check reach, collisions and cycle time, then load the program into the controller. RobotStudio, ROBOGUIDE, KUKA.Sim, MotoSim and RoboDK are examples.
3. Lead-through or hand guiding: move the arm by hand to teach points, mainly on cobots.

Behind every method is the robot's own language:

Safety comes first

Industrial robots are fast and strong, so safety is part of every lesson, not a separate topic. The standards are ISO 10218-1 for the robot and ISO 10218-2 for the robot application and cell, with risk assessment carried out to ISO 12100. Both parts were revised in 2025, the first major update since 2011, adding many more defined safety functions and cybersecurity requirements and folding in the collaborative guidance of ISO/TS 15066; a comparison of the 2011 and 2025 editions sets out the changes. Courses and older manuals may still quote the 2011 text. In practice:

• Program and test in T1 (manual reduced speed), where the TCP speed is limited to 250 mm/s and you hold an enabling switch.
• Never stand inside the working envelope while the robot runs in automatic.
• Use the controller's safety-rated position and speed functions, such as FANUC DCS or ABB SafeMove, where the design needs them.

Your first program

Whatever the brand, a first pick-and-place follows the same shape:

Add a fault path: if the gripper does not confirm it has closed, the robot should stop and raise a message rather than carry on with nothing in its hand. Our ABB RobotStudio pick-and-place walkthrough shows this in RAPID, and your first FANUC teach pendant program does the same on a FANUC pendant.

Talking to a PLC

In a production cell the PLC decides what the robot does next. The two exchange handshake signals: the PLC selects a program and sends a start; the robot reports ready, running, in home position and cycle complete. This is done through digital I/O or a fieldbus such as PROFINET or EtherNet/IP, using interfaces like FANUC UOP or KUKA's Automatic External. Understanding this handshake is often what a new robot technician is asked about first.

Free industrial robotics training in simulation

The EDWartens robotics courses run entirely in the vendors' simulators, with no robot needed:

• FANUC Robot Programming with the Teach Pendant and ROBOGUIDE
• ABB Robot Programming with RobotStudio and RAPID
• KUKA Robot Programming with KUKA.Sim, smartPAD and WorkVisual
• RoboDK Offline Programming and Simulation

There are also courses for Yaskawa Motoman, Universal Robots and ROS 2 with Python. The industrial robotics path puts them in order. For the licence terms of each simulator, see free robot programming simulators, and for how the vendors' own free training compares, see free industrial robotics courses with certificate. For where open-source robot software is heading, read about Intrinsic Core going open source and what Qualcomm's PickNik deal means for MoveIt.

Learning is free in full: video lessons from independent YouTube creators credited on each course page, written notes, a practice task per module and a 15-question final assessment (60% to pass, three attempts, then a 24-hour wait). Create a free account so progress is saved.

The optional EDWartens Certificate of Completion for these beginner courses is a small one-off fee, US$8.99 (ROS 2 is intermediate, so it costs a little more). It can be checked at edwartens.com/verification. It is not a FANUC, ABB, KUKA or Yaskawa certification and is not accredited.

Take the free course

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Robotics · Beginner · Free

FANUC Robot Programming with the Teach Pendant and ROBOGUIDE

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Robotics · Beginner · Free

ABB Robot Programming with RobotStudio and RAPID

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Robotics · Beginner · Free

KUKA Robot Programming with KUKA.Sim, smartPAD and WorkVisual

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Robotics · Beginner · Free

RoboDK Offline Programming and Simulation