Pick-up and placement apparatus

Abstract

Pick-up and placement apparatus including an arm that executes pick-up and placement motions and a drive mechanism that drives said arm. The drive mechanism comprising a rotating member normally or reversely driven and rotated in an appointed range of rotation, a swiveling member slidably attached to the rotating member in the radial direction and normally or reversely swiveling in an appointed range of rotation by normal and reverse rotations of the rotating member, being provided with a connection portion directly or indirectly linked with the arm, a retaining means applying a retaining forces to retain the swiveling member at an appointed position in the radial direction with respect to the rotating member while slidably retaining the swiveling member, and a means for regulating and guiding said connection portion to linearly move the connection portion by directly or indirectly regulating the swiveling member in the vicinity of both ends of in the range of rotation. The connection portion is constructed so as to reciprocate on a motion locus consisting of an arcuate locus portion, which is composed by the swiveling of the swiveling member without being substantially regulated, and a pair of linear locus portions connected to both ends of the arcuate locus portion and composed by being regulated by the regulating and guiding means, and the arm carries out motions substantially corresponding to the motion locus of the connection portion.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.