Article pickup apparatus for picking up randomly piled articles

An article pickup apparatus configured to detect randomly piled articles by a visual sensor and pick up the articles by a robot one by one based on visual information acquired by the visual sensor,

• wherein the robot comprises:
• a hand provided at a tip end of an arm and configured to hold the article;
• and
• a force sensor configured to detect an external force acting on the hand,
• wherein the article pickup apparatus comprises:
• a visual information processing unit configured to acquire a position and a posture of the hand in which the hand can hold the article, as a holding position and posture, based on visual information acquired by the visual sensor;
• a force target value setting unit configured to set a target value of an external force acting on the hand when the article is held;
• and
• a holding operation unit configured to control the robot to move the hand to the holding position and posture and control the hand to hold the article, and
• wherein the holding operation unit is configured to control the robot or the hand in accordance with profile control when the article is held by the hand so that an external force detected by the force sensor is closer to the target value of the external force.