Article transfer apparatus, robot system, and article transfer method

Abstract

An article transfer apparatus includes: a conveyor configured to transfer workpieces; a photographing unit that acquires a three-dimensional image by photographing the transferred workpieces; a workpiece distinguishing unit that detects three-dimensional shapes and postures of the workpieces on the basis of the three-dimensional image acquired by the photographing unit; a storage unit that stores therein three-dimensional shapes of reference workpieces and postures of the reference workpieces in a state in which the reference workpieces do not overlap with another workpiece; and an overlap judgement unit that judges whether there is an overlap between the workpieces on the basis of the three-dimensional shapes and the postures of the reference workpieces stored in the storage unit, and the three-dimensional shapes and the postures of the workpieces detected by the workpiece distinguishing unit.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.