Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Tomohiro Maruo

Norio Okutani

Toshitugu Inoue

Hiroyuki Inoue

Hitoshi Kubota

Akiyoshi Nakada

Takashi Anezaki

Manabu Yamane

Yoshiaki Makizawa

Tomiyasu Ueda

Akiho Hirahata

A method for measuring the three-dimensional position of an object to be captured. A laser measuring unit is provided having an image recognition camera confronting the object, first and second laser light emitting sources respectively irradiating from a slant direction a lateral slit light onto the object relative to a vertical axis of a vision coordinate system and irradiating a vertical slit light onto the object relative to a lateral axis of the vision coordinate system, one slit image on the vertical axis of the object and one slit image on the lateral axis of the object and one of the slit images on the vertical and lateral axes formed before and after the laser measuring unit is moved a predetermined amount in a direction of a camera optical axis relative to the object are taken into the camera, and the three-dimensional position is calculated from the relationship between the predetermined moving distance amount and the deviation of the slit images on the vision coordinates of the coordinate system. This method can be used to locate an electric adjustment position of an electronic component and to move the hand of an industrial robot carrying an electric adjustment member to the electronic component for adjusting the electronic component in the electric adjustment position.

Method for measuring three-dimensional position of object to be captured

Robots for industrial use having an arm mechanism of a horizontal multiple articulated type. The load movement mechanism and the arm expansion mechanism, which are provided within the robot arms in advance with respect to the change condition through the catching of the gravity force changes by the force sensor from a case where the weight is moved, placed to a case where nothing is grasped, are properly operated, so that the mutual dynamic interferences of the respective driving portions of the robot may not be caused or may be made minimum, and may be made simple in shape by the comparatively simple control apparatus, with an effect that the superior robot which is capable of stable operations may be realized.

Industrial use robot with horizontal multiple articulated arms with

A photoelectric position encoder using diffraction imagery has a laser light source emitting parallel, coherent light. As least one light sensing device senses the light amount received from the light source and provides an output signal corresponding thereto. A transfer slit plate having periodic slits is disposed between the light source and the light sensing device. The light sensing device thus senses the variation in the received light amount caused by the movement of the transfer slit plate. The light sensing device also senses brightness and darkness fringes of a diffraction image caused by the periodic slits of the transfer plate. Circuitry is coupled to the light sensing device and issues a position signal corresponding to the position of the transfer slit plate.

Photoelectric position encoder using diffraction imagery

Disclosed is an industrial robot of the type wherein the robot arm is directly driven by a motor. A position encoder generates a signal representative of the actual position of the arm and a manually controlled position entry switch is operable during a teaching mode. When the arm is manually moved to a desired position, a memory controller responds to the operation of the position entry device by storing the actual position signal in a memory as a target position signal, and reads the stored signal during a playback mode. A servo-control system responds to the actual position signal from the encoder and the target position signal from the memory by controlling the motor so that the actual position of the arm approaches the desired position during the playback mode. The output of the servo-control system is decreased during the teaching mode to render the arm manually movable to the desired position and is increased during the playback mode. Alternatively, the servo-control system is disabled during the teaching mode to permit the robot arm to be manually moved to the desired position and enabled during the playback mode.

Industrial robot having a device for teaching a motor-driven arm with

Position detecting apparatus

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Katano, Japan

Tomohiro Maruo