US 5,086,262 AGranted

Industrial robot system

AssigneeNachi-Fujikoshi Corp.

InventorsKazuo Hariki, Tatsuya Koizumi, Kazuya Ishiguro, Kiyoshi Kanitani

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Abstract

An industrial robot system comprising a plurality of robots for conducting a work in cooperation with each other. A system clock is provided in the system, and clocks are provided in the respective robots. These clocks are counted up at the same cycle time, and are set for original points of the respective robots, which are the waiting positions thereof, and the clock values of the robots located in the respective positions during the drive operation. During the drive of the system, the system clock is advanced by adding a predetermined increment value thereto, and the respective robots held under the enabling condition, start the operations by advancing the robot clocks by adding the same increment value as that of the system clock.

Claims7

Dependent claims

A method for controlling an industrial robot system including a plurality of robots arranged for conducting a job in cooperation with each other, comprising the following steps of:

a) setting a system clock and a clock for each robot so that a predetermined increment value is added to each clock in every constant basic time period, each clock reaching a predetermined saturated value just within a cycle time of the system, and then each clock again starting to count from zero;
b) setting, for each of the robots, an original point clock value which is a waiting position for starting an operation, and setting respective positions of each robot during operation of that robot in accordance with clock values of the clock associated with that robot;
and
c) advancing the system clock by adding thereto the predetermined increment value every constant basic time period during drive of the system, and advancing the clock of each robot by adding thereto the predetermined increment value whenever a robot corresponding to that clock is enabled.

1 more element

An industrial robot system comprising:

a plurality of robots each having at least one axis, arranged for performing a job in cooperation with each other;
a teaching controller for moving the robots to conduct teaching thereof and assigning a recordation of positions of the robots;
and
a single robot controlling unit, said robot controlling unit comprising:
a) a system clock and a clock for each robot, a predetermined increment value being added to each clock every constant basic time period, each clock reaching a predetermined saturated value within a cycle time of the system and then each clock starting to count again from zero;
b) program forming means for correspondingly recording values of the clock of each robot in accordance with positions of the corresponding robot;
c) means for registering an original point of each robot corresponding to the clock thereof, by setting the original point which corresponds to a waiting position of the robot for starting operation and selecting any step of a program as the original point;
d) means for advancing the system clock during drive of the system by adding thereto a predetermined increment value every basic time period, and advancing the clock of each robot by adding thereto the predetermined increment value when the robot associated with that clock is enabled;
e) means for setting a safety operational range for each robot within which operation of the robot is continued except for an emergency stop, in the case where it is judged that, if continuing the operation up to the original point of the robot after a present step, even when a stop command is generated during a recycle operation of the system, any operational interference and an accidental release of work may not occur;
f) abnormality transferring means for conducting a predetermined safety stop of the robot which suffers from an abnormality, transferring a stop signal to the other adjacent robots to avoid interference between the robots, determining whether any other robots are to stop or to continue operating until reaching the respective original points by judging whether or not the other robots are in the respective safety operational ranges, and preventing interference between adjacent robots by transmitting the stop command to the other robots upstream and downstream from the robot having the abnormality;
g) means for setting availability/unavailability signals for controlling a supply of power to each robot, and during teaching operation, supplying power only to a robot to be taught;
and
h) controlling means for controlling information on the work, said controlling means comprising:
1) means for obtaining a difference between a clock value of a present step and a clock value of a next step;
2) means for obtaining a calculation number as to what multiple of the predetermined increment of the clocks corresponds to the difference;
3) means for obtaining an increment value of position by dividing the difference between a target position to be reached and a present position by the calculation number;
4) means for obtaining a first complementary point by adding the increment value of position to the present position;
and
5) means for successively complementing the position, calculating the position synchronous with the clock and outputting the calculated position to the robot for operation by subtracting "1" from the calculation number and repeatedly obtaining an n-th complementary point from 3) if the subtracted number is not zero.

16 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.