Article handling system and method and article management system and method

• US 7,187,999 B2
• Filed: 01/11/2006
• Issued: 03/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/02/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Matsukawa, Yoshihiko, Sato, Satoshi, Yamada, Osamu, Okamoto, Shusaku, Naruoka, Tomonobu
• Primary Examiner(s): Black; Thomas
• Assistant Examiner(s): Marc; McDieunel
• Application Number:
  US11/330,380
• Publication Number:
  US 20060116973A1
• Time in Patent Office: 419 Days
• Field of Search: 700/245
• US Class Current: 700/245
• CPC Class Codes: B25J 5/007 mounted on wheels
• CPC Class Codes: B25J 9/0003 Home robots, i.e. small robots for domestic use
• CPC Class Codes: B25J 9/1697 Vision controlled systems
• CPC Class Codes: B65G 2203/041 Camera
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/39387 Reflex control, follow movement, track face, work, hand, visual servoing
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0251 extracting 3D information from a plurality of images taken from different locations, e.g. stereo vision stereoscopic image analysis H04N13/00; depth recovery from images G06T7/593
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0255 using acoustic signals, e.g. ultra-sonic singals sonar systems designed for anti-collision purposes G01S15/93
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0274 using mapping information stored in a memory device navigation using map-matching G01C21/30

Abstract

A camera or other sensing unit senses the conditions of articles and mobile entities, including humans within a living space. An article management/operation server manages, within an article database, attribute information about the articles, including operators, according to the information from the sensing unit. The server receives a user'"'"'s instruction, input through a console unit, and refers to the article database to convert this instruction into a control command, which is then transmitted to a life-support robot.

Claims

1. A system for managing an article existing in a life space, comprising:

a database containing at least predetermined shape information about an article in the life space and information about a location and posture of the article;

a designation device for designating a transfer subject article and a placement location which is a transfer destination of the transfer subject article;

a laborer robot having a holder for holding an article, the laborer robot holding the transfer subject article in the holder to place the transfer subject article at the placement location;

a placement posture determination section for determining a posture of the transfer subject article placed by the laborer robot based on the information contained in the database according to information about other articles in the vicinity of the placement location; and

a controller for controlling the transfer subject article to be placed at the placement location in the posture determined by the placement posture determination section,

wherein the article shape information is defined in the form of polygon model data or shape parameters which express a rectangular parallelepiped or cylindrical shape,

the article posture information is defined in the form of article rotation angle information relative to a coordinate system defined in the life space,

the placement posture determination section refers to the database to check whether or not an article equal or similar to the transfer subject article in predetermined polygon model data or shape parameters exists in the vicinity of the placement location, and

if it exists, the placement posture determination section refers to the database to adjust placement posture information of the transfer subject article to be in harmony with posture information of the equal or similar article.

2. The article management system of claim 1 wherein, if the placement location designated as the transfer destination is in a wastebasket, the placement posture determination section determines the placement posture of the transfer subject article not to fit in with the posture of other articles in the wastebasket.

3. The article management system of claim 1, further comprising an environment map database containing map information of the life space,

wherein the placement posture determination section further refers to the environment map database and, if a placement space at the placement location is limited, determines the posture of the transfer subject article such that the transfer subject article is accommodated in the placement space.

4. A system for managing an article existing in a life space, comprising:

a database containing article information about an article in the life space and map information of the life space, the article information including at least a current location, size, shape and posture;

a designation device for designating a transfer subject article and a placement location which is a transfer destination of the transfer subject article;

a laborer robot having a holder for holding an article, the laborer robot holding the transfer subject article in the holder to place the transfer subject article at the placement location;

a placement location determination section for determining the placement location of the transfer subject article based on the information contained in the database,

wherein the placement location determination section determines, based on the information of the database, whether or not the transfer subject article overlaps a previously-placed article when the center of gravity of the transfer subject article is placed on the designated placement location,

if the transfer subject article does not overlap the previously-placed article, the placement location determination section does not change the placement location,

if the transfer subject article overlaps the previously-placed article, the placement location determination section refers to the database to determine whether or not the transfer subject article is placeable on the previously-placed article according to the area of an upper surface and horizontality of the previously-placed article and the placement area and horizontality of the transfer subject article,

if placeable, the transfer subject article is placed on the previously-placed article,

if unplaceable, the placement location determination section changes the placement location to a vicinal location at which the transfer subject article is placeable, and

the transfer subject article is place at the placement location determined by the placement location determination section.