Object moving apparatus

An object moving apparatus, comprising:

• a leader carriage comprising a carriage body travelable in all directions by travel drivers and a lifter attached to said carriage body via a link mechanism for lifting up an object, said leader carriage being movable along a given target track;
• a follower carriage comprising a carriage body travelable in all directions and a lifter attached to said carriage body via a link mechanism for lifting up said object, said follower carriage estimating and following movement of said leader carriage so as to move the object in coordination with said leader carriage;
• traveling actuators for movement of said carriage body of said leader carriage in a desired direction;
• force sensors installed in said link mechanism of said leader carriage for detecting as force information interaction force between the leader and follower carriages via the object;
• track sensors for detecting actual track information of said carriage body of said leader carriage;
• a wireless communication device for transmitting control information to said follower carriage;
• a leader control for outputting, on the basis of target track information, the force information detected by said force sensors of said leader carriage and the actual track information detected by said track sensors of said leader carriage, electric current command values to said traveling actuators of said carriage body of said leader carriage for movement of said carriage body of said leader carriage along the target track, said leader control also sending control information to said follower carriage via said wireless communication device;
• traveling actuators for movement of said carriage body of said follower carriage in a desired direction;
• force sensors installed in said link mechanism of said follower carriage for detecting as force information interaction force between the leader and follower carriages via the object;
• track sensors for detecting actual track information for said carriage body of said follower carriage;
• a wireless communication device for receiving the control information from said leader carriage;
• and
• a follower control for outputting, on the basis of the force information detected by said force sensors of said follower carriage, the actual track information detected by said track sensors of said follower carriage and the control information received from said leader carriage by the wireless communication device, electric current command values to said traveling actuators of said carriage body of said follower carriage so that the carriage body of said follower carriage may follow the movement of said leader carriage;
• the link mechanism being provided by a parallel linkage comprising a plurality of link members arranged on a single horizontal plane, each of the link members serving as a force sensor and having one and the other ends connected through universal joints to the carriage body and the lifter, respectively,
• the lifter being arranged on the carriage body through the parallel linkage such that constrained in total are three planar degrees of freedom, i.e. two degrees of freedom to move in X and Y directions in the horizontal plane and one degree of freedom in a direction to rotate around a Z-axis orthogonal to the X and Y direction while made free are three degrees of freedom in total, i.e. one degree of freedom in a direction to rotate around the X-axis, one degree of freedom in a direction to rotate around the Y-axis and one degree of freedom in a direction to move along the Z-axis.