US 12,434,383 B2 · 3D printer using robot and control apparatus for robot

Abstract

Provided are: a 3D printer using a robot and enabling molding of an article with high strength and high accuracy; and a control apparatus for said robot. A robot used as this 3D printer has: an input-side encoder that acquires information regarding the angle of an input axis of a joint of the robot operated on the basis of a control command; and an output-side encoder that acquires information regarding the angle of an output axis. A calculation unit of this control apparatus has: a control command storage unit having stored therein a control command for motors of respective axes of the robot; a deviation estimation unit that receives results of detection by both of the input-side encoder and the output-side encoder and estimates the deviation of an actual trajectory of the robot from the control command; and a control command correction unit that corrects the control command by using the estimation result by the deviation estimation unit.

Claims6

Dependent claims

A robot controller configured to control an articulated robot having a nozzle configured to inject material of an object to be modelled, the robot controller comprising:

a control command storage unit configured to store a control command including a planned print path to be followed by the nozzle when the nozzle moves while applying the material to the object;
a deviation estimation unit configured to calculate a printed path corresponding to an actual motion trajectory of the nozzle based on angle information of each of input and output sides of a joint of the articulated robot operated based on the control command, and estimate a deviation between the printed path and the planned print path;
a control command correction unit configured to correct the control command so as to eliminate the estimated deviation;
and
an application state estimation unit configured to estimate an application state of the object to be modelled based on a reaction force applied to the nozzle while the material is injected,
wherein the control command correction unit corrects the control command so that the reaction force is within a target range predetermined based on the application state.

3 more elements

A 3D printer comprising:

an articulated robot having a nozzle configured to inject and laminate material of an object to be modelled;
and
a robot controller configured to control an articulated robot having a nozzle configured to inject material of an object to be modelled, the robot controller comprising:
a control command storage unit configured to store a control command including a planned print path to be followed by the nozzle when the nozzle moves while applying the material to the object;
a deviation estimation unit configured to calculate a printed path corresponding to an actual motion trajectory of the nozzle based on angle information of each of input and output sides of a joint of the articulated robot operated based on the control command, and estimate a deviation between the printed path and the planned print path;
and
a control command correction unit configured to correct the control command so as to reduce or eliminate the estimated deviation,
wherein the articulated robot has an input-side encoder configured to obtain angle information of the input side of the joint, and an output-side encoder configured to obtain angle information of the output side of the joint.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

3D printer using robot and control apparatus for robot

Life of this patent

3D printer using robot and control apparatus for robot

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims6