Nissan Motor Company Limited

Nhk Spring Co., Ltd.

Hiroyuki Ono

Yoshitada Sekine

Kazuyoshi Abe

Hiroyuki Kanno

Tohru Nishiyama

Kazuhiko Yazaki

Tatsuo Miyauchi

Minoru Nomaru

Kaoru Okuyama

Toru Nishiyama

Hiroshi Sasaoka

Masahito Iwase

A metal shaft includes a hollow tube made of metal, capable of having hardness varying in a longitudinal direction of the metal shaft while preventing increase in the number of variations on a shape of the metal shaft. The tube has a hardness pattern exhibited by hardness of the tube varying in a longitudinal direction of the tube according to Young's modulus or tensile strength of the metal varying in the longitudinal direction.

Metal shaft having longitudinally varying hardness, golf shaft using the metal shaft, golf club using the metal golf shaft, method of manufacturing the metal shaft, and tempering apparatus

A control for robots wherein a plurality of control units are connected in a hierarchical structure including a plurality of ranks including the lowest rank, and the robots subordinate to the control units belonging to the lowest rank.

Control for a group of robots

In a flexible manufacturing system for assembling various types of vehicle bodies, there is employed a work piece carrier on which a work piece positioning device is mounted. The work piece positioning device has a plurality of position changeable work piece holders which are grouped into a plurality of groups each having its own power input device. When the carrier comes to a type switching stage together with the work piece positioning device, a power source installed in the type switching stage is brought into connection with the power input device of one of the groups thereby to changing the positions of the corresponding work piece holders. Then, the power source is brought into connection with the other power input device of the other group to change the positions of the corresponding work piece holders.

Method and apparatus for assembling vehicle body

In a flexible manufacturing system for assembling various types of vehicle bodies, there is employed a work piece carrier on which a work piece positioning device is mounted. The work piece positioning device has a plurality of position changeable work piece holders which are grouped into a plurality of groups each having its own power input device. When the carrier comes to a type switching state together with the work piece positioning device, a power source installed in the type switching stage is brought into connection with the power input device of one of the groups thereby to change the positions of the corresponding work piece holders. Then, the power source is brought into connection with the other power input device of the other group to change the positions of the corresponding work piece holders.

A flexible manufacturing system for assembling various types of vehicle bodies is disclosed. The system includes a work supply means by which corresponding works for the various types of vehicle bodies are supplied, a main body assembling device which includes a plurality of locating and welding robots of numerical control type and control means for controlling operation of the robots in a programmed manner so that the various types of vehicle bodies are continuously assembled in order. A method for controlling the system comprises (a) sensing a trouble which would occur in any of the robots, (b) stopping the robot in trouble, and (c) controlling operation of the other robots in such a manner that at least one of the types of vehicle bodies is assembled by the remaining robots.

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Yokohama, Japan

Hiroyuki Ono