National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan

National Aerospace Laboratory of Science Technology Agency

Heihachiro Kamimura

Isao Yamaguchi

Teruomi Nakaya

Osamu Okamoto

Seizo Suzuki

Shuichi Sasa

Kazuyoshi Yabuuchi

Katsuhiko Renbutsu

Mitsuharu Izaki

Jyunichi Ueno

Yasuoki Usui

Hiroaki Nagano

Kotaro Matsumoto

Sachiko Wakabayashi

A robot is obtained having various functions that are demanded for planetary landing vehicles, extreme operations robots or the like, in particular to provide a leg structure for a robot that is capable of getting up itself when overturned, facilitating take-off and landing on uneven ground, and that has a walking function and that has a hand function capable of three-dimensional operation. A robot comprises a main robot body and at least three legs mounted on this main body for enabling three-dimensional movement of the main robot body such as a self-erecting action or walking action; each leg is constituted by a multi-joint arm having a plurality of said offset rotary joints linked together and has a ground-engaging member mounted at the leading end of the arm, so that each leg is capable of independently controlled three-dimensional movement and drive.

Robot having offset rotary joints

The present invention provides contact sensors capable of determining the pressure distribution over the whole surface of each of joint units having a cylindrical shape, both end portions of which are cut at an offset angle, and constituting robot arms. In order to provide a technology enabling real-time drive control of the robot arms by using detected values from these sensors, the points of intersection of the electrodes are distributed across the whole surface of each joint by forming a pressure-sensitive sheet sensor in which column electrodes arranged in parallel, and row electrodes arranged in a wound-string shape, are combined, these joints having a cylindrical shape, both end portions of which are cut at an offset angle. In addition, by making an electrode structure that covers a prescribed width in both rows and columns, the number of signal output terminals is reduced and the operation processing load is lightened. Moreover, after executing local processing, through the use of an encoder and pressure-sensitive sheet sensor provided in each of the joints, in addition to the information processing means, &lsqb;this data&rsqb; is sent to the CPU, whereby the central operation processing load is lightened.

Pressure-distribution sensor for controlling multi-jointed nursing robot

In a rotary articulated robot having at least a plurality of offset rotary joints in which a drive arm and driven arm are driven in rotation about an offset rotary axis inclined with respect to the arm axis, a hollow rotary shaft that is driven in rotation by a motor is arranged rotatably, being inclined, at the leading end of the arm of either the drive arm or driven arm while a rotor member to which turning effort from the hollow shaft is transmitted is fixed at the base of the other arm, said hollow rotary shaft and said rotor member constituting a high reduction ratio transmission/torque increasing mechanism. The method of control is that the operation of the joints is determined by dividing the operating region of the end effector into a plurality of blocks, the operating conditions of each joint necessary for movement to a prescribed block are converted to database form for each block, the teaching of operating points in the prescribed block region is converted to database form and a track is generated to the block of the operating region on the basis of the block region data; and when a reference point of the block is reached, the in-block operating point data is fetched.

Rotary articulated robot and method of control thereof

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Tokyo, Japan

Heihachiro Kamimura