US 6,192,297 B1Granted

Method for handling metal sheets in a working area comprising a machine tool and a robot

AssigneeSalvagnini Italia S.p.A.

InventorMario Marobin

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Abstract

A method for moving metal sheets of a working area by an antropomorphous robot comprises a) taking of preselected fixed input data that identify the geometry in the space of components of a working island; b) taking, comprising from a machine tool, preselected variable input data comprising dimensions and shape of a preselected metal sheet to be handled and a sequence of working preselected metal sheets; c) processing the fixed and variable input data on a processing unit in order to generate automatically output data that identify a preselected trajectory of the metal sheet to be handled and d) transfer the output data to a control unit of the robot in order to drive said robot to move the metal sheet along the preselected trajectory so as to handle said metal sheets selected by type.

Claims32

Dependent claims

A method for moving metal sheets in a space of a working area comprising a machine tool, at least a robot, a site for feeding the metal sheets to be worked and a site for unloading the finished metal sheets, said machine tool, robot and feeding and unloading sites having each a prefixed shape and a prefixed geometric position in the space of said working area, said robot being provided with an arm and with a grasping member capable of taking said metal sheets and being operatively connected to a control unit,

characterized in that (i) said robot is antropomorphous and (ii) for handling said metal sheets the following steps are performed:
a) preselected fixed input data are detected comprising configuration parameters that identify the geometry in the space of said machine tool, said robot, and at least one of said feeding and unloading sites without resorting to CAD techniques;
b) preselected variable input data are detected from said machine tool comprising
dimensions of a preselected metal sheet to be handled,
a shape of said metal sheet to be handled,
a sequence of working of preselected metal sheets, without resorting to CAD techniques;
c) the above-mentioned fixed and variable input data are processed on a processing unit by an algorithm based on the solutions of the inverse kinematics in order to generate automatically output data that identify a preselected trajectory of said metal sheet between one of said feeding and unloading sites and said machine tool, the preselected trajectory comprising an initial point and a final point and intermediate points, and for each point k (1, 2, 3, . . . k′) the solutions of the inverse kinematics arc found;
and
d) said output data are transferred to said control unit of said robot in order to drive said robot to move said metal sheet along said preselected trajectory so as to automatically handle said metal sheets selected by type.

6 more elements

A robot for handling metal sheets in a space of a working area comprising a machine tool, a site for feeding the metal sheets to be worked and a site for unloading the finished metal sheets, said machine tool, robot and feeding and unloading sites having each a prefixed shape and a prefixed geometric position in the space of said working area, said robot being provided with an arm and with a grasping member capable of taking said metal sheets and being operatively connected to a control unit,

characterized in that (i) said robot is antropomorphous and (ii) said control unit is capable of operating according to a method for moving wherein, for preselected metal sheets to be handled, the following steps are performed:
a) preselected fixed input data are detected comprising configuration parameters that identify the geometry in the space of said machine tool, said robot, and at cast one of said feeding and unloading sites without resorting to CAD techniques;
b) preselected variable input data are detected from said machine tool comprising
dimensions of a preselected metal sheet to be handled,
a shape of said metal sheet to be handled,
a sequence of working of preselected metal sheets, without resorting to CAD techniques;
c) the above-mentioned fixed and variable input data are processed on a processing unit by an algorithm based on the solutions of the inverse kinematics in order to generate automatically output data that identify a preselected trajectory of said metal sheet between one of said feeding and unloading sites and said machine tool, the preselected trajectory comprising an initial point and a final point and intermediate points, and for each point k (1, 2, 3, . . . k′) the solutions of the inverse kinematics are found;
and
d) said output data are transferred to said control unit of said robot in order to drive said robot to move said metal sheet along said preselected trajectory so as to automatically handle said metal sheets selected by type.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.