US 12,491,645 B2Granted

Apparatus and method of operating twistlock and associated robot

AssigneeABB Schweiz AG

InventorsYe Tian, Jibo Yang

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Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide an apparatus and a method for operating a twistlock and an associated robot. The apparatus comprises a clamping assembly comprising a plurality of pairs of clamping portions spaced apart by different distances and adapted to engage with different types of twistlocks, respectively; and an operating assembly adapted to drive one of the plurality of pairs of clamping portions to clamp the twistlock and to drive the clamped twistlock to rotate, to allow the clamped twistlock to be mounted on or removed from a container. In this way, the apparatus according to embodiments of the present disclosure can be applied to most types of twistlocks without changing the clamping assembly, thereby improving the operation efficiency and reducing the costs.

Claims20

Dependent claims

An apparatus for operating a twistlock, comprising:

a clamping assembly comprising:
a plurality of pairs of clamping portions spaced apart by different distances and adapted to engage with different types of twistlocks, respectively, comprising:
a first pair of clamping portions spaced apart by a first distance and adapted to engage a first type of twistlock;
and
a second pair of clamping portions spaced apart by a second distance and adapted to engage a second type of twistlock;
wherein the second type of twistlock is different than the first type of twistlock;
a controller adapted to select one of the first pair of clamping portions or the second pair of clamping portions in response to determining a type of a twistlock in use;
and
an operating assembly adapted to drive the selected one of the first pair of clamping portions or the second pair of clamping portions to clamp the twistlock as determined and to drive the clamped twistlock to rotate, to allow the clamped twistlock to be mounted on or removed from a container.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.