Abstract: A robot control apparatus provides shortened operating times for movement of a robot member, such as an arm, hand, or the like, without accelerating the movements so as to unduly stress the robot, by beginning movement of the member in a second direction when motion in a first direction has been decelerated to a predetermined level. The process is repeated, when a third movement is involved, with the third movement being initiated, for example, when the second movement has decelerated to an appropriate level. An inhibit control is provided for inhibiting motion of the robot arm in the event of faulty parts preparation, mislocation of a part, or when an obstruction is present.

Abstract: There is provided an apparatus for estimating a necessary amount of ink for printing which comprises a reading head for scanning an original print to produce analog signals representing the optical densities of the picture dots of the original print, an A-D converter for converting the analog signal from the reading head into digital signal representing one of 256 optical density levels of the picture dot on the original print, a plurality of level counters for classifying the digital signals from the A-D converter into 256 groups each including the digital signals representing the same optical density level and counting the digital signals for each group, and a system controller for multiplying the number of digital signals in each group and the amount of ink required to print the picture dot at a corresponding optical density level to produce the total amount of ink required to print all the picture dots on the original print.