Yaskawa Electric Mfg. Co. Ltd.

Kabushiki Kaisha Yasakawa Denki Seisakusho

Mitsuyoshi Nakano

Kaoru Kimura

Shunji Sato

Junichiro Ogawa

The present invention provides a wrist mechanism with three degrees of freedom for an industrial robot, which is compactly formed and to which a tool is mounted. The first degree of freedom is associated with a first input shaft for rotating a wrist portion at a low speed. The second and third degrees of freedom are associated with rotating the tool or tilting the wrist. In order to attain these motions, second and third input shafts concentrically arranged relative to the first input shaft are used for transmitting motion to, through bevel gears, speed reduction mechanisms each symmetrically disposed at right and left sides, and the outputs therefrom are used to drive the tool and wrist.

Wrist mechanism for industrial robot

This invention discloses a contact sensing device for detecting the contact of a moving element such as a welding torch attached to a robot arm with a fixed body. The contact sensing device substantially comprises a support-side member, a work-side member, a spherical bearing mounted on either the support-side member or work-side member, a slide shaft slidably mounted on the spherical bearing, the slide shaft being slidable in an axial direction, an elastic member mounted on the slide shaft for making the work-side member biasingly come into contact with the support-side member, at least three rollers mounted on a first surface of either the support-side member or the work-side member, the rollers capable of coming into contact with a second surface of either the support-side member or the work-side member which opposes the first surface, at least one roller engaging member mounted on the second surface on which one of the rollers runs, and a limit switch actuated by the displacement of the slide shaft.

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Munakata, Japan

Mitsuyoshi Nakano