Adapting programming of a robot and/or control of the robot based on one or more parameters of an end effector of the robot

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9687982-B1
Application number	US-201514723349-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	May 27, 2015
Priority date	May 27, 2015
Publication date	Jun 27, 2017
Grant date	Jun 27, 2017

Abstract

Methods and apparatus that adapt programming and/or control of a robot. The robot has at least one attachment area that can removably couple with any one of a plurality of end effectors. The programming and/or control is adapted based on received parameters of an end effector attached (or to be attached) to the attachment area of the robot. Some implementations are directed to adapting graphical user interface output of a robot programming application based on one or more parameters of an end effector for a robot being programmed via the robot programming application. Some implementations are directed to adapting control of a robot based on one or more parameters of an end effector attached (or to be attached) to the robot.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
identifying, by a robot, an end effector attached to the robot, the end effector being one of multiple end effectors that can be attached to and detached from an end effector attachment area of the robot;
receiving, by the robot from the end effector, one or more physical property parameters defined for the end effector, the physical property parameters comprising an action location parameter defining at least one reference point for positioning the end effector relative to an object to be acted upon by the end effector;
generating, by the robot, one or more control commands to provide to one or more actuators of the robot, wherein the control commands are generated based on at least one of the physical property parameters received from the end effector, and wherein generating the one or more control commands comprises:
determining a path of the end effector based on the action location parameter, the path determined to position the reference point of the end effector at a particular location at the end of the path; and
generating the one or more control commands to move the end effector along the path.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining a given control command of the control commands comprises applying a given physical property parameter of the physical property parameters as a value for a variable utilized in generating the given control command.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the physical property parameters further comprise one or more of a mass parameter, a center of mass parameter, and an inertia parameter.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the end effector is a gripper.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the end effector is manually adjustable to a plurality of hardware configurations and wherein the at least one of the physical property parameters on which the control commands are based are particularized to a current hardware configuration of the plurality of hardware configurations.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:
identifying, by the robot, the current hardware configuration of the end effector; and
selecting a subset of the physical property parameters defined for the end effector based on the current hardware configuration of the end effector, the subset comprising the at least one of the physical property parameters on which the control commands are based;
wherein generating the control commands is based on the selected subset of the physical properties parameters.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein identifying the current hardware configuration of the end effector comprises determining the current configuration based on input received by the robot, from the end effector.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the input comprises a plurality of identifiers each corresponding to an appendage of the end effector and wherein selecting the subset of the physical property parameters defined for the end effector based on the current hardware configuration of the end effector comprises:
selecting the subset based on a mapping between the identifiers and the physical property parameters of the subset.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the one or more physical property parameters defined for the end effector comprises retrieving the physical property parameters from memory of the end effector via a wired interface connection between the robot and the end effector.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the physical property parameters further comprise geometric bound properties that define the outer bounds of the end effector in at least one state of the end effector, and wherein determining the path of the end effector is further based on the outer bounds of the end effector.

11. A method, comprising:
identifying, by a robot, a gripper attached to the robot, the gripper being one of multiple end effectors that can be attached to and detached from an end effector attachment area of the robot;
receiving, by the robot, one or more physical property parameters defined for the gripper, the physical property parameters comprising an action location parameter that defines at least one reference point for positioning the gripper relative to an object to be acted upon by the gripper;
generating, by the robot, one or more control commands to provide to one or more actuators of the robot,
wherein the control commands are generated based on at least one of the physical property parameters received by the robot, and
wherein generating the one or more control commands to provide to one or more actuators of the robot comprises determining at least one of the control commands to position the gripper based on the action location parameter.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein determining a given control command of the control commands comprises applying a given physical property parameter of the physical property parameters as a value for a variable utilized in generating the given control command.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the physical property parameters further comprise one or more of a mass parameter, a center of mass parameter, and an inertia parameter.

14. The method of claim 11 , wherein the gripper is manually adjustable to a plurality of hardware configurations and wherein the at least one of the physical property parameters on which the control commands are based are particularized to a current hardware configuration of the plurality of hardware configurations.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:
identifying, by the robot, the current hardware configuration of the gripper; and
selecting a subset of the physical property parameters defined for the gripper based on the current hardware configuration of the gripper, the subset comprising the at least one of the physical property parameters on which the control commands are based;
wherein generating the control commands is based on the selected subset of the physical properties parameters.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein identifying the current hardware configuration of the gripper comprises determining the current configuration based on input received by the robot, from the gripper.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the input comprises a plurality of identifiers each corresponding to an appendage of the gripper and wherein selecting the subset of the physical property parameters defined for the gripper based on the current hardware configuration of the gripper comprises:
selecting the subset based on a mapping between the identifiers and the physical property parameters of the subset.

18. The method of claim 11 , wherein identifying the one or more physical property parameters defined for the gripper comprises retrieving the physical property parameters from memory of the gripper via a wired interface connection between the robot and the gripper.

19. The method of claim 11 , wherein the physical property parameters further comprise geometric bound properties that define the outer bounds of the gripper in at least one state of the gripper, and wherein determining the path of the gripper is further based on the outer bounds of the gripper.

20. A robot, comprising:
one or more actuators;
an end effector attachment area;
one or more processors and memory storing instructions that, when executed by one or more of the processors, cause one or more of the processors to:
identify a gripper attached to the robot, the gripper being one of multiple end effectors that can be attached to and detached from the end effector attachment area;
identify one

Assignees

• X Dev Llc

Inventors

• Jules Anthony Sean
• Jessen Johan Ulrich Lewin
• Davis Benjamin M

Classifications

• B25J9/1612 Primary

  characterised by the hand, wrist, grip control · CPC title

• B25J9/161

  Hardware, e.g. neural networks, fuzzy logic, interfaces, processor · CPC title

• G05B2219/40527

  Modeling, identification of link parameters · CPC title

• G05B2219/39466

  Hand, gripper, end effector of manipulator · CPC title