Kawasaki Jukogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Kawasaki Robotics (usa), Inc.

Takao Yamaguchi

Hajime Nakahara

Masaya Yoshida

Yasuhiko Hashimoto

Ming Zeng

Avish Ashok Bharwani

Daniel Chung

Tetsuya Yoshida

Nobuyasu Shimomura

Takeshi Shibata

Atsushi Nakaya

Yasuo Hirooka

Yukimasa Yamada

George Chin

Tomokazu Arita

Eric Chan

Hiroyuki Yoshida

Yuji Tanaka

Hui Kuen Chan

Daniel Chan

Hiroshi Kanda

Francisco J Duran, Jr

A method of teaching a robot, the robot including a first and second end effector that are mounted to a robotic arm wrist, the first and second end effector being rotatable about a same rotational axis independently of each other. The method includes: a first step of, in a state where rotational positions of the first and second end effectors about the rotational axis coincide with each other, attaching a relative motion preventing device to the first and second end effector, the relative motion preventing device preventing the first and second end effector from moving relative to each other; and a fourth step of generating a teaching point of the second end effector based on: a teaching point of the first end effector; and rotational position information about the first and second end effector that are stored in a storage unit in association with each other in a third step.

Method of teaching robot

A position correction method includes: a step of opposing a hand to a target by moving the hand such that the hand becomes in a predetermined first initial posture; a first position detection step of detecting a position of the target from a rotation angle of a rotation axis when the target blocks a detection light by swinging the hand; a step of opposing the hand to the target by moving the hand such that the hand becomes a predetermined second initial posture different from the first initial posture; a second position detection step of detecting a position of the target from the rotation angle of the rotation axis when the target blocks the detection light by swinging the hand; and a correction amount arithmetic step of obtaining rotation angle correction amounts of the second axis and the third axis based on a difference between the position of the target acquired in the first initial posture and the position of the target acquired in the second initial posture.

Method of correcting position of robot and robot

A method of correcting a position of a robot includes: a correction step of rotating an arm around a first axis to detect a rotation angle around the first axis when a target blocks detection light, and locating the first axis, a third axis, and the target on an identical straight line by rotating the arm and/or a hand around the first axis, a second axis, and/or the third axis based on a detection result; and a correction amount arithmetic step of obtaining rotation angle correction amounts of the second axis and the third axis based on the rotation angle of each rotation axis acquired after the correction step in a first posture.

A substrate conveyance robot has an end effector provided to a robot arm and including a substrate holding unit configured to hold a substrate, arm drive unit configured to drive the robot arm, a robot control unit configured to control the arm drive unit, and a holding force detection unit configured to detect a substrate holding force exerted by the substrate holding unit. The robot control unit controls the arm drive unit based on an upper limit value of at least one of acceleration and speed of the end effector which are determined in accordance with the substrate holding force detected by the holding force detection unit.

Substrate conveyance robot and operating method thereof

In this system, regarding an conveyance object placed on a rotary table, based on positions temporarily set previously as a taking position of the disk-shaped conveyance object in a storing container and a reference position of the rotary table, information of the taking position of the conveyance object in the storing container and of the reference position of the rotary table is acquired based on information of the deviation of the conveyance object placed on the rotary table with respect to the reference position of the rotary table acquired by a sensor portion so as to teach a conveying operation of the conveyance object from the storing container to the rotary table by the robot based on the acquired position information.

Conveying system, conveying robot and teaching method of the same

A method of teaching a robot includes: a swinging step of causing a hand to swing about a predetermined pivot, which is on an axis perpendicular to an optical axis of a sensor beam, to scan a target in a horizontal direction of the sensor beam; a determining step of determining whether or not the target has coincided with a position along a central axis of the hand in its longitudinal direction based on a detection signal of a mapping sensor, the detection signal having changed owing to the swinging of the hand; and a shifting step of, if it is determined in the determining step that the target has not coincided with the position, calculating an offset amount of the hand based on the detection signal of the mapping sensor, the detection signal having changed owing to the swinging of the hand, and causing the hand to shift to either right or left along the optical axis of the sensor beam in accordance with the calculated offset amount.

Method of teaching robot and robot

A target position detection apparatus for a robot includes: a robot including an arm configured to be freely moved in at least two directions of X and Y axes, the arm having a wrist axis provided at a distal end of the arm and configured to be freely moved in a horizontal direction, and the wrist axis being provided with an end effector; and a control unit adapted for driving a memory to store a teaching point therein and controlling an operation of the robot such that the end effector will be moved toward the teaching point stored in the memory. The control unit is further adapted for changing a pressing force of the end effector against a target by changing a control loop gain, and bringing the end effector into contact with the target, while setting the control loop gain of the wrist axis lower than a predetermined value at least from a position adjacent to the teaching point at which the target is located, so as to capture a position in a state in which the end effector is in contact with the target, thereby detecting the position of the target.

Target position detection apparatus for robot

The angular position of a notch () is determined on the basis of data provided by second notch detectors () and () and an encoder (). A controller () turns a rotational arm () for angular displacement such that holders () and () are displaced in a circumferential direction B from the notch (), and then the holders () and () hold a wafer (). Since the holders () and () are in touch with edges in which the notch () is not formed, the first notch detector () is able to detect the notch () without difficulty. Thus the position of the wafer () relative to the rotational arm () does not need to be changed several times depending on positions at which the holders () and () hold the wafer (), which is necessary in the prior technology. The aligner () touches parts, not including the notch (), of the wafer () and is capable of adjusting the position of the wafer () in a short time.

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

Takao Yamaguchi