Robot system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10442633-B2
Application number	US-201816033628-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 12, 2018
Priority date	Aug 9, 2017
Publication date	Oct 15, 2019
Grant date	Oct 15, 2019

Abstract

A robot system including a conveying device; a robot that processes an object being conveyed; a first and second supply unit that supply the object onto the conveying device; a movement amount detection unit that successively detects an amount of movement of the object supplied by the first supply unit; a single vision sensor that successively acquires visual information of the object being conveyed; an object detection unit that processes the acquired visual information to detect position and orientation of the object; an interval detection unit that detects an interval between objects on the conveying device; a control unit that controls the robot based on the amount of movement and the position and orientation; and a production management unit that causes the second supply unit to supply the object at a position of the interval.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A robot system comprising:
a conveying device that conveys an object in one direction;
a robot, installed near the conveying device, that performs a process on the object being conveyed by the conveying device;
a first supply unit and a second supply unit that supply the object onto the conveying device;
a movement amount detection unit that successively detects an amount of movement, by the conveying device, of the object supplied by the first supply unit onto the conveying device;
a single vision sensor that successively acquires, on an upstream side of the robot in a conveying direction, visual information of the object being conveyed by the conveying device;
an object detection unit that processes the visual information acquired by the vision sensor to detect position and orientation of the object;
an interval detection unit that processes the visual information acquired by the vision sensor to detect an interval between objects on the conveying device in the conveying direction;
a control unit that controls the robot based on the amount of movement of the object detected by the movement amount detection unit and the position and orientation of the object detected by the object detection unit; and
a production management unit that causes the second supply unit to supply the object at a position of the interval detected by the interval detection unit, in a case where the interval is greater than a predetermined threshold.

2. The robot system according to claim 1 , wherein
the interval detection unit outputs, to the production management unit, a signal to an effect that the interval that is greater than the threshold is detected, in a case where the object is not detected in a predetermined object presence check region arranged in a field of view of the vision sensor, and
the production management unit, upon reception of the signal, causes the second supply unit to supply the object in the object presence check region.

3. The robot system according to claim 2 , wherein
the vision sensor acquires the visual information at a frame rate of detecting the same object at least twice in the field of view, and
the object presence check region is arranged at a position on an upstream side away from a downstream end of the field of view at least by a distance allowing acquisition of the visual information by the vision sensor.

4. The robot system according to claim 2 , wherein the second supply unit is arranged on a downstream side from a center of the object presence check region by the amount of movement from reception of a command from the production management unit to supply of the object onto the conveying device.

Assignees

• Fanuc Corp

Inventors

• Ooba Masafumi

Classifications

• G05B2219/39106

  Conveyor, pick up article, object from conveyor, bring to test unit, place it · CPC title

• G05B19/4182

  manipulators and conveyor only · CPC title

• B65G47/08 Primary

  spacing or grouping the articles during feeding (during transit by conveyor B65G47/28) · CPC title

• B65B57/10

  responsive to absence, presence, abnormal feed, or misplacement of articles or materials to be packaged · CPC title

• B65G43/08

  Control devices operated by article or material being fed, conveyed or discharged {(and controlling the discharging devices B65G47/42)} · CPC title