The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 15, 1988
Filed:
Feb. 24, 1987
Philip R Lloyd, South Nutfield, GB;
Barry M Jones, Crawley, GB;
Peter Saraga, Wallington, GB;
David R Humphreys, Horley, GB;
Clive V Newcomb, Horley, GB;
U.S. Philips Corporation, New York, NY (US);
Abstract
In automatic assembly apparatus operating under electronic vision control, features on components to be assembled must be recognized and located in position and orientation so that a gripper mechanism may be directed to one component to pick it up and move it into correct position and orientation relative to the other component for assembly. The invention provides a known parallel projection optical system 8, 9, at the location of each component which provides a plan view for an electronic camera 11 of the components 20, 22 at constant scale regardless of lateral or axial component movements. The grey-level picture of each component provided by the camera is thresholded into a binarized picture at a threshold level which selects a primary component feature 27 within a part of the camera field of view which is certain to contain this feature. From the known location of secondary features 25, 26 and 38, 39, 40 of the component relative to the primary feature, successively limited search areas 35 and 41, 42 are set up within the camera field of view to select these secondary features when thresholded at levels related to the primary threshold. Sufficient features are thereby located in the camera field of view to provide position and orientation information on the component to a computer which directs the gripper 15 to assemble the components.