Toshiba Kikai Kabushiki Kaisha

Yasunori Nishihara

Toshihiko Nakane

Jun Fujita

Yuta Matsumoto

A picking apparatus includes: a three-dimensional imaging device configured to three-dimensionally-image workpieces contained in bulk in a container; a robot arm having a hand capable of gripping a workpiece; and a control device configured to control an operation of the robot arm; the control device is configured: to recognize a position and a posture of a target workpiece, based on an imaging result of the three-dimensional imaging device; to obtain an gripping position of the workpiece and an approach vector thereof, based on the recognized position and posture information; to calculate an intersection point between a straight line extending along the approach vector through the gripping position and a plane including an opening of the container; and to judge whether the workpiece can be picked or not, based on a positional relationship between the intersection point and the opening.

Picking apparatus and picking method

A robot apparatus () includes a control apparatus () which carries out correction with use of an estimated value of a joint torque estimation unit () which estimates a joint torque acting upon each of joints (to). The joint torque estimation unit () includes a Coulomb frictional force torque estimation unit (), a viscous frictional torque estimation unit (), and a transition interval arithmetic operation unit () which smoothens transition from the Coulomb frictional force torque estimation unit () to the viscous frictional force estimation unit () and transition from the viscous frictional force torque estimation unit () to the Coulomb frictional force torque estimation unit ().

Robot apparatus and control method therefor

A handling apparatus having a belt conveyor () for conveying a work (), a robot () for performing a predetermined operation for the work (), a visual sensor () for photographing the work () being conveyed to produce work data indicating each work () in the photographed image, and a robot controller () for gathering the work data for each image thereby to produce a tracking data, and for storing the tracking data in a database, thereby to control the robot () with the database so that a predetermined operation is performed on the work () transferred to the position of the robot (). The robot controller () performs a predetermined calculation on the work data read out from the database, detects the overlapped work data, and cancels the control of the actions of the robot () based on the overlapped work data. The robot controller () rearranges the sequences, in which the robot () performs the operation on each work ().

Handling apparatus, control device, control method, and program

A handling system able to efficiently process information relating to a plurality of conveyed articles, the handling system provided with a conveyer for conveying workpieces, a visual sensor for detecting positions of workpieces by acquiring images of a plurality of tracking ranges obtained by dividing a belt into sections, an encoder for detecting an amount of movement of the belt, a tracking manager for monitoring amounts of movement of the plurality of tracking ranges based on the amount of movement detected by the encoder and specifying the tracking range passing through a workpiece detection area, a workpiece manager for selecting the article in the tracking range specified by the tracking manager, and a controller for controlling operations of robots so as to hold the workpiece selected by the workpiece manager.

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Numazu, Japan

Yasunori Nishihara