JP2000296487A - Rotor device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve efficiency of operation by shortening operating time by a robot device. SOLUTION: This device is provided with a palletized robot 8 comprising a gripper 81 for gripping a work w carried by a conveyer 9 and a handling device 82 for transferring the work w to a pallet 7 by moving the gripper 81, a palletized robot controller 5 for controlling an operation of the handling device 82, a visual sense robot 3 comprising a camera 31 for photographing the work w, and a shift amount processing part 10 for calculating a shift amount based on an input from the camera 31 to a reference position preset for the work w followed by outputting a correction based on the shift amount to the palletized robot controller 5, and the visual sense robot 3 is provided at an upper stream position than an operation executing position of the palletized robot 8.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a robot apparatus for performing a predetermined operation such as machining such as cutting or moving a workpiece on a workpiece sent by a conveyor such as a conveyor, and particularly relates to a robot such as a camera. The present invention relates to a robot device having a configuration for correcting a displacement of a workpiece sent using a visual input unit.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a robot apparatus configured to be able to correct a workpiece displacement by the above-mentioned visual input means, for example, the one shown in FIG. 3 is known. This robot device is a device for gripping a work 01 conveyed by a conveyor 09 with a work gripper 06 as a head unit and transferring the work 01 to a pallet 07.
Numeral 6 is arbitrarily movable by the handling device 010. Since the work 01 is formed in a three-dimensional shape and is provided with holes and the like, a normal gripping position is set in advance. In addition, the work gripper 06 includes:
A visual camera 02 as a visual input means is attached, and photographs the work 01 sent to a position gripped by the work gripper 06. Then, the position information of the work 01 captured by the visual camera 02 is input to the robot controller 03, and the robot controller 0
The correction unit of No. 3 is configured to calculate how much the sent work 01 is with respect to a preset normal position. Further, the controller 03
Has been configured such that the position where the work 01 is gripped by the work gripper 06 is shifted from the preset normal gripping position by a shift amount obtained by the correction unit, and the work 01 is gripped.

Therefore, the work 01 is moved from the conveyor 09
Even if the workpiece gripper is displaced from the normal position when it is placed on the
6, it is possible to always hold the regular holding position and transfer it to the pallet 07 accurately.

[0004]

However, according to the above-mentioned prior art, the work 01 is sent to a position where it is gripped by the work gripper 06 (position indicated by 0n in the figure) and then photographed by the visual camera 02. The correction unit calculates the deviation amount, and then moves the work gripper 06 by the handling device 010, and
6 requires a long time from when the work 01 is sent to when the work is started, which reduces the amount of the work 01 that can be transported, thereby deteriorating the work efficiency. Had. In addition, in order to improve the recognition accuracy of the displacement amount of the work 01, the visual camera 0
It is preferable to set a large number of checkpoints of the work 01 by the method 2. However, if the number of checkpoints is increased in this way, the time required for inputting visual information by the visual camera 02 becomes longer, and the work efficiency is poor. Was even more pronounced.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, and has as its object to shorten the working time by the robot apparatus and improve the working efficiency.

[0006]

According to the present invention, there is provided a head for applying a predetermined operation to a work to be conveyed by a conveying means,
A handling device for moving the head unit, a controller for controlling the operation of the handling device, visual input means for photographing the work, and a preset reference position of the work based on an input from the visual input means And a correction unit that calculates a shift amount with respect to the controller and outputs a correction value based on the shift amount to the controller, wherein the visual input unit is located upstream of a work execution position by a head unit in the transport unit. Position. Therefore, at the stage before the work is sent to the work execution position by the head unit, while the work is being executed by the head unit and the handling device, the work can be photographed by the visual input unit to determine the shift amount. . Therefore, when the work is sent to the work execution position, the work can be started immediately.

[0007] As described in claim 2, claim 1
In the robot apparatus described above, when the transfer unit is configured to stop the transfer by the head unit during the working time and to transfer the workpiece sequentially while repeating the transfer and the stop, the visual input unit is controlled by the head unit. It is preferable to arrange at the stop position one time before the work execution position. In this configuration, after the shift amount of the work is obtained by the correction unit based on the input from the visual input unit, the work reaches the work execution position in one feed, so the work execution position is determined from the position where the shift amount is recognized. It is unlikely that the work will be misaligned during the transfer of the work, and high work accuracy can be ensured even if the work execution position is far from the visual input position.

[0008] Also, as described in claim 3, claim 1
In the robot device described in (2), it is preferable that the visual input means is supported by a second handling device, and a plurality of reference positions set in the work are input. Therefore, the number of points for recognizing the shift amount of the work increases, and the work accuracy for the work improves. Further, it is possible to cope with various types of workpiece shapes.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. First, the configuration will be described. FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, in which 3 is a visual robot, 7 is a pallet, 8 is a palletizing robot, and 9 is a conveyor.

The conveyor 9 transports the work w. The conveyor 9 stops the work for the working time of the palletizing robot 8 and sequentially transports the work w. The work w is shown by an imaginary line in the figure. The position is the stop position of each work w.

The palletizing robot 8 includes a conveyor 9
A gripper 81 serving as a head for sucking and gripping the workpiece w by negative pressure, and a gripper 81 for transferring the workpiece w transferred to a position indicated by n in FIG. And a handling device 82 capable of three-dimensionally moving 81 to an arbitrary position.

The operation of the palletizing robot 8 is controlled by a palletizing robot controller 5. The palletizing robot controller 5 sets a work w sent to a position indicated by n in FIG. It is configured to be gripped by the gripper 81 at the set regular gripping position.

In the conveyor 9, the visual robot 3 is provided at a position upstream of the palletizing robot 8 by one feed, that is, at the position of the work w indicated by n + 1 in the figure. . The visual robot 3 includes a camera 31 as a visual input unit, and a handling device 32 that can move the camera 31 to an arbitrary position three-dimensionally. Is moved to an arbitrary position so that a predetermined portion of the work w can be photographed. The operation of the visual robot 3 is configured to be controlled by the visual robot controller 4.

The visual robot controller 4 includes:
A shift amount calculation processing unit 10 is provided for photographing a predetermined position of the work w with the camera 31 and calculating a shift amount of the work w with respect to a preset normal position. That is,
In the present embodiment, an automobile door having a three-dimensional shape is assumed as the work w, and four corners (indicated by e in the figure) of the door are photographed, and the four corners are photographed. Is configured to recognize the amount of deviation of the workpiece w from the normal position based on the position.

The displacement calculated by the displacement calculator 10 is input to the palletizing robot controller 5, and when the workpiece w is gripped, the workpiece w is shifted from the normal gripping position by this displacement. It is configured to execute gripping control.

Next, control contents of the visual robot controller 4 and the palletizing robot controller 5 will be described. FIG. 2 is an operation flowchart showing the processing flow of the visual robot controller 4 and the palletizing robot controller 5 according to the embodiment of the present invention, and the operation will be described in chronological order from the top to the bottom of the flowchart.

First, in step 100, both the visual robot controller 4 and the palletizing robot 5 wait for a new work w to be transported. Next, when the work w arrives, in step 101, the visual robot controller 4 moves the camera 31 of the visual robot 3 to the n + 1 position one time upstream of the position n where the work by the palletizing robot 8 is performed. The position of the work w is recognized by moving it to the position just above the recognition position e and capturing the position of each corner.

Next, in step 102, step 10
The shift amount of the work w from the normal position is calculated based on the position of the work w recognized in step 1. That is, in the conveyor 9, the workpiece w is placed at a predetermined position with respect to the center line of the conveyor 9, for example, at the most upstream position, and the amount of planar deviation from the normal position is calculated here. Things.

As described above, while the processing of step 101 is being executed in the visual robot controller 4,
The palletizing robot controller 5 executes the processing of steps 301 to 303. In step 301, a gripping position correction process is performed. That is, the work w currently being conveyed to the position n is shifted from the normal gripping position by the shift amount based on the shift amount calculated by the shift amount calculation processing unit 10 when the work w was at the position n + 1. Correction is performed with the position as the gripping position. Step 30
In step 2, after the handling device 82 is operated to move the gripper 81 to the gripping position, a process of sucking and gripping the workpiece w by the gripper 81 is executed. In step 303, the work w is transferred to the pallet 7 by the handling device 82, the suction by the gripper 81 is stopped, and the process of loading the work w on the pallet 7 is completed.

After the calculation of the amount of displacement in step 102 and the pallet loading process in step 303 are completed, the process proceeds to step 100 again, and the work w
Wait for transfer. Incidentally, actually, when the processing of step 102 and step 303 is completed, a signal is output to the conveyor 9 so that the conveyor 9
Is sent once, and the process is waited for the end of this process.

Therefore, in this embodiment, the work w
However, when the palletizing robot 8 performs the operation of grasping the work w at the position n in the figure and transferring it to the pallet 7 when the palletizing robot 8 is conveyed one step at a time by the conveyor 9, The work w at the position n + 1 in the figure is photographed by the camera 31, and the shift amount of the work w from the normal position is calculated. Then, when the work w for which the shift amount is obtained is sent to the position of n, the work w is n + 1
Then, the gripping position by the palletizing robot 8 is corrected based on the shift amount obtained at the position of.

Therefore, in the present embodiment, when the workpiece w is gripped by the palletizing robot 8, there is no need to wait for recognizing the amount of displacement, and the work is immediately gripped when the workpiece w is sent. Thus, the working time can be shortened and the working efficiency can be improved. In the present embodiment, since the shift amount can be recognized while the palletizing robot 8 performs the work, the number of points to be photographed is increased in order to increase the calculation accuracy of the shift amount. However, there is enough time to execute this photographing, and the recognition accuracy can be improved without lowering the work efficiency.

Further, in the embodiment, since the camera 31 is provided in the visual robot 3 and the photographing position of the camera 31 can be arbitrarily moved, the number of recognition points is increased in order to improve accuracy. Easy and
Even if there are many types of works w flowing on the conveyor 9, it is easy to deal with them.

The embodiment of the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the drawings. However, the specific configuration is not limited to this embodiment, and a design change or the like may be made without departing from the gist of the present invention. Even if present, it is included in the present invention. For example, in the embodiment, the camera 31 as a visual input unit is used.
Is configured to be arbitrarily movable by the handling device 32. However, if this visual input unit is installed upstream of a position where a predetermined operation is performed by the robot device,
It may be fixed. Further, in the embodiment, the example has been described in which the conveyor 9 as the transfer device feeds the work w one step at a time, but the transfer device feeds the work at a constant speed, and sets the visual input means to the feed speed. It is also possible to adopt a configuration in which the moving is performed and the deviation amount from the normal position is obtained while moving. For example, a range indicated by B in FIG. 1 is a work range by the head unit (palletizing robot 8), and a range indicated by A in FIG. In the embodiment, a gripper 8 that grips a work w is used as a head unit of a robot device.
Although 1 is shown, the work is not limited to the gripping of the work w, and may be other work such as cutting.

[0025]

As described above, in the robot apparatus of the present invention, the work is executed by the head unit and the handling device before the work is sent to the work execution position by the head unit. The work can be photographed by the visual input means while the work is in progress, and the amount of deviation can be obtained.
The work can be started immediately, and the effect of shortening the work time and improving the work efficiency can be obtained. Further, according to the second aspect of the present invention, it is difficult for a new displacement to occur in the work while the work is conveyed from the position where the displacement is recognized to the work execution position. The effect that working accuracy can be ensured is obtained. According to the third aspect of the invention, the number of recognition points of the amount of deviation of the work is increased, so that work accuracy for the work can be improved, and various types of work shapes can be handled, and quality can be improved. .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall view showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a control flow chart according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an overall view showing a conventional technique.

[Explanation of symbols]

 w Work 3 Visual robot 31 Camera (visual input means) 32 Handling device (Second handling device) 4 Visual robot controller 5 Palletizing robot controller 7 Pallet 8 Palletizing robot 81 Gripper (head unit) 82 Handling device (First handling device) 9) Conveyor (transportation device)

Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Hisato Shikata 10-1 Amanuma, Hiratsuka-shi, Kanagawa F-term in Nissan Shatai Co., Ltd. (reference) 3F059 AA02 AA06 AA13 BA02 BA08 BA09 BB02 DA02 DB05 FB12 FB16 FC01 FC04

Claims (3)

[Claims] A head for applying a predetermined operation to a work to be conveyed by a conveying means; a handling device for moving the head; a controller for controlling the operation of the handling device; Visual input means for photographing the work, correction based on an input from the visual input means, obtaining a shift amount of the work relative to a preset reference position, and outputting a correction value based on the shift amount to the controller; Means, wherein the visual input means is provided at a position upstream of a work execution position by a head unit in the transport means. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the transporting unit is configured to stop the transport by the head unit during a working time and transport the workpiece sequentially while repeating the transport and stop, and the visual input unit executes the work by the head unit. The robot apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the robot apparatus is disposed at a stop position immediately before the position. 3. The visual input device according to claim 1, wherein the visual input means is supported by a second handling device, and is configured to input reference positions set at a plurality of positions on the work. The robot device as described.