Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Yusaku Azuma

Takeo Tanita

Shozo Kasai

Masateru Yasuhara

Toshihiro Yamamoto

Yasuhiro Sawada

Ryohei Inaba

Katsumi Ishihara

Norio Nikaido

Hiroyuki Kigami

Toshihiko Miura

Mitsuo Arai

Takeshi Yakou

Sachio Umetsu

Toshio Tsuda

Yasushi Aoki

Teiji Ohsaka

Makoto Akahira

Yasuo Karube

Masaru Shibata

Masatoshi Morita

Suguru Onuma

Hideaki Kawata

Teiji Oosaka

Yoshinobu Katae

Kenzi Kuroki

Osamu Shigematsu

Shozou Kasai

A method for stocking a plurality of containers in a stocking device and feeding one container at a time to a robot includes the steps of separately supporting each container in a vertically moveable frame and moving the frame to align a selected container at a drawing position. The selected container is withdrawn from the frame and a lid of a pallet on the withdrawn frame is removed. The articles are then supplied to the robot.

Automatic article feeding system

A clean robot capable of a linear conveying motion comprises a base, a first arm rotatably supported by the base, a second arm rotatably supported by the first arm, and a third arm rotatably supported by the second arm. Also provided are a first driving unit for rotating the first arm with respect to the base in a first rotational direction at a first angular velocity, a second driving unit for rotating the second arm with respect to the first arm in a second rotational direction reverse to the first rotational direction at a doubled angular velocity of the first angular velocity, and a third driving unit for rotating the third arm with respect to the second arm in the first rotational direction at the first angular velocity.

Clean robot

A method for feeding articles to a robot comprises the steps of temporarily storing a plurality of containers in a temporary storing device including a rest on which the plurality of containers are stacked and a separator for simultaneously separating the stacked containers from each other, stocking a plurality of containers supplied from the temporary storing device in a stocker, and feeding the stocked containers to the robot one-by-one.

In a pallet supply apparatus, pallets are stacked on a loaded pallet elevator and are conveyed by the elevator to the upper end position of a main body of the pallet supply apparatus. The uppermost pallet is separated from the remaining pallets by a shutter. A left side flange of the pallet is pushed by a left roller in a direction to approach rear and side reference surfaces, and a right side flange of the pallet is then pushed by a right roller in a direction to separate away from the side reference surface and to approach the rear reference surface, thus positioning the pallet. When all works are picked up, and the pallet becomes empty, the right and left rollers are escaped, and thereafter, the pallet is slidably moved toward an empty pallet elevator.

Pallet supply apparatus and control method thereof

A method of controlling a cylinder apparatus includes the steps of supplying compressed air of a first high pressure to one chamber of a cylinder which is divided into two chambers by a piston, and exhausting air from the other chamber so as to move the piston from the start position at an end portion of one chamber toward an end position at an end portion of the other chamber along the extending direction of the cylinder, and detecting if the position has passed the position of a sensor. In addition, a moving speed of the piston is decreased by supplying air of a second high pressure lower than the first high pressure to the other chamber after an elapse of a predetermined wait time from when the piston has passed the position of the sensor, so that the piston reaches the end position in a shock-free state.

Method of controlling cylinder apparatus

A robot apparatus includes a robot arm, a robot hand, an electrical/electronic device mounted on the robot hand for operating the robot hand, and a hand attaching/detaching device, arranged between the robot arm and the robot hand, for detachably mounting the robot hand on the robot arm. A signal transmission path, is connected to an external robot controller at one end thereof and to the electrical/electronic device at the other end thereof, extends through the hand attaching/detaching device, and is able to be disconnected between the robot hand side and the robot arm side in the hand attaching/detaching device. The signal transmission path drives the robot hand, and allows a plurality of kinds of signals for the electrical/electronic device to pass therethrough in a multiplexed serial format; a first signal conversion circuit, arranged on a robot hand side, converts the multiplexed serial format signal into original parallel signals, and output the parallel signals to the electrical/electronic device, or converts signals from the electrical/electronic device into a multiplexed serial format signals, and outputs the multiplexed serial signal to a robot controller.

Robot apparatus with an electrical driver for controlling a detachable

An article feeding apparatus which feeds articles from a feed source to a section to be subjected to feeding includes a stocker for stocking a plurality of pallets retaining a plurality of articles in units of types of articles, with the stocker being capable of moving one pallet to a predetermined position, and a take-out unit for taking the pallet moved to the predetermined position outside the stocker in order to transfer articles to the section to be subjected to feeding. In addition, a buffer receives replacement of the pallets retaining the articles from external equipment and temporarily stores the plurality of pallets, and a replacing unit replaces the pallets in the stocker with the pallets in the buffer in accordance with a decrease in number of articles in the pallet in the stocker to a predetermined value as the articles are fed to the feeding section.

A work pick-up apparatus which picks up an object work out of a plurality of works held on a container case through visual recognition of the position of the object work by a visual sensor. The apparatus comprises: a memory circuit for storing shape characteristic information concerning the shape characteristic of the object work; an input circuit for externally inputting approximate position information representing an approximate position of the object work on the case, the approximate position information being expressed in terms of a coordinate system associated with the work pick-up apparatus; and a measuring circuit for measuring the pick-up position of the work in terms of the coordinate system associated with the pick-up apparatus, by processing the image information concerning the work obtained through the visual sensor in accordance with the approximate position information and the shape characteristic information.

Work pick-up apparatus

A mounting system having a function of picking up one of several different type works from a pickup position where the works having the different types are selectively fed, and of moving a picked up work to an insertion position so as to mount the work on a printed circuit board. The mounting system includes a rotary member arranged to be rotatable, head mechanisms having different types and mounted on the rotary member, the head mechanisms having a number of types corresponding to that of the types of the works, a memory for storing a pickup order and an insertion order in units of types of works, a driver for rotating and stopping the rotary member at predetermined angles, and a control device for preferentially driving the head mechanism to the pickup or insertion position.

Mounting system including a plurality of hand mechanisms for picking up,

There is disclosed an apparatus and a method for feeding articles, the apparatus containing a tape transporting apparatus, including a transporting member having plural containing portions in succession, a cover tape for covering the apertures of the containing portions of the transporting member, a first reel for simultaneously winding the transporting member and the cover tape, a second reel for winding the transporting member only, a third reel for winding the cover tape only, a drive assembly for rotating the first, second and third reels, intermittent drive unit for driving the transporting member, control unit for driving the drive assembly and intermittent drive unit, an aperture for loading or removing the articles into or from the containing portions of the transporting member, a first detector for detecting the presence or absence of the article in the containing portion, and a guide member for defining the position to an article assembling apparatus or an article manufacturing apparatus, wherein each of these apparatus is provided with a robot hand and a main control unit to be connected to the control unit mentioned above.

Method for supplying articles and apparatus therefor

An industrial robot is provided with a body, a horizontal arm pivotally supported on the body, and a vertical arm mounted on the tip end portion of the horizontal arm for rotation about its own center axis. The robot includes a drive motor for rotatively driving the vertical arm, speed reduction means for speed-reducing and transmitting the drive force of the drive motor through a first output pulley to a second output pulley, and first and second detected portions mounted on the first and second output pulleys, respectively, with respective predetermined ranges of extension and indicating the original point position of the vertical arm by the difference between the respective phases. In addition, first and second detectors are fixed to the horizontal arm and output first and second detection signals, respectively, as long as they are detecting the first and second detected portions, respectively, and a controller is provided for judging the original point position of the vertical arm on the basis of the output modes of the first and second detection signals from the first and second detectors respectively.

Robot

An orthogonal two-axis moving apparatus is provided with a first guide member extending along a vertical direction, a second guide member mounted on the first guide member for movement along the vertical direction and extending along a horizontal direction, and a slide block mounted on the second guide member for movement along the horizontal direction. A timing belt having its opposite ends fixed to the slide block is passed over first and second drive rollers rotatably mounted on the opposite ends of the first guide member and rotatively driven by first and second motors, four idle rollers rotatably supported on one end of the second guide member and two idle rollers rotatably supported on the other end of the second guide member, and a driven roller rotatably supported on the slide block.

Orthogonal two-axis moving apparatus

A handling device for a stocker, for storing various articles or containers, has a pair of engaging members for storing or extracting the articles, in which the engaging members have unbalanced engaging forces and the articles are aligned in one direction by the unbalanced engaging forces.

Handling device for articles or containers

A planetary roller speed reducer includes a sun roller mounted rotatably on a pedestal and a plurality of planetary rollers having a central portion with a narrowed diameter and mounted rotatably on the pedestal. The sun roller circumscribes large-diameter portions of the planetary rollers which work as a first reduction part, and an outer ring working as an output shaft circumscribes a small-diameter portion working as a second reduction part. A rotary driving system comprises a support fixed to the pedestal and disposed within the outer ring on an extension of the sun roller, and a turning angle detector fixed to the outer ring detects a turning angle between the support and the outer ring.

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Yusaku Azuma