Kawasaki Jukogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Kawasaki Robotics (usa), Inc.

Yuji Tanaka

Masaya Yoshida

Hajime Nakahara

A substrate transfer apparatus includes a base, an arm, an end effector provided at a tip of the arm and having first and second tip portions that are bifurcated, a light emitting unit, a light receiving unit, and a control device controlling an operation of the arm. The control device controls an operation of the arm so that light straightly traveling through a tip of the end effector scans edges of a plurality of substrates accommodated in a front opening unified pod (FOUP), and compares shape patterns of a measured waveform of an output value continuously changed in the light receiving unit with shape patterns of a reference waveform for comparison according to a relative positional relationship between the light and substrate during the operation of the arm and diagnoses at least one of a state of the substrate, the FOUP, and the end effector based on a comparison result.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Yuji Tanaka