US 6,088,628 AGranted

Jog feeding method for robots

AssigneeFanuc Corporation

InventorsAtsushi Watanabe, Takayuki Ito, Tomoyuki Terada

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Abstract

An operation section 32 of a teaching operation panel 30 connected to a robot controller 10 through a cable 40 has a general operation section 321 provided with a sub-display 323, and a graphic display operation section 322 for a display 31 provided with a touch panel. When a hand in touch with a hand mark 21' of the robot displayed along with a graphic image 20' is moved on the display screen (as indicated by an arrow A; from a position H1 to a position H2), the touched positions are sequentially sensed by the touch panel and converted to three-dimensional position data by using plane position data (which is calculated based on either a line-of-sight in graphic display or a specifically designated direction of a plane and the latest touched position). Thus obtained three-dimensional position data is, on one hand, used for sequentially updating the display of the graphic image 20', and, on the other hand, sent to the robot controller 10 in order to be used for jog-feeding the robot 20 (as indicated by an arrow A'). A mouse 34 may be used instead of the touch panel. The line-of-sight in graphic display may be determined by a sensor for detecting a three-dimensional orientation.

Claims21

Dependent claims

A jog-feeding method for a robot using a system including a robot controller for controlling an operation of the robot, a graphic display device connected to said robot controller, for displaying graphic image of said robot, a pointing device for inputting two-dimensional positions on a display screen of said graphic display device and means for converting the two-dimensional position input through said pointing device into three-dimensional position output using plane position data, said method comprising the steps of:

(A) displaying an initial graphic image representing an orientation of said robot before the start of movement thereof on the display screen of said graphic display device;
(B) starting a two-dimensional position input for the jog feed on the display screen of said graphic display device using said pointing device;
(C) sequentially converting the two-dimensional position input into a three-dimensional position output based on plane position data;
(D) sequentially updating the graphic image of said robot based on said three-dimensional position output;
(E) moving said robot based on said three-dimensional position output using said robot controller;
(F) terminating the two-dimensional position input using said pointing device for the jog feed.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.