Method and system for determining a servicing requirement

• US 8,290,708 B2
• Filed: 06/15/2005
• Issued: 10/16/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ABB Patent GmbH (ABB Limited)
• Original Assignee: ABB Patent GmbH (ABB Limited)
• Inventors: Bader, Axel, Hansen, Sven, Schmidt, Steffen, Henrich, Kim
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Khoi
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kiswanto, Nicholas
• Application Number:
  US11/153,042
• Publication Number:
  US 20060287768A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,680 Days
• Field of Search: 700/12, 700/15, 700/16, 700/254, 340/3.43, 340/3.44, 702/176, 702/184
• US Class Current: 701/500
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/32234 Maintenance planning
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A method determines the servicing requirements of axes of a robot arm of an industrial robot. The data of a movement sequence of at least one axis during at least one working cycle of the industrial robot is made available. The rotational movements of the at least one axis are established on the basis of the data, and a servicing interval for the at least one axis is determined by an assessment of the rotational movements established. A system for determining a servicing requirement performs the method.

Claims

1. A method for determining a servicing requirement of axes of a robot arm of an industrial robot, which comprises the steps of:

making available data of a movement sequence of at least one axis during at least one working cycle of the industrial robot;

determining rotational movements of the at least one axis on a basis of the data of the movement sequence;

determining a servicing interval for the at least one axis by an assessment of the rotational movements;

performing at least one of measuring the data of the movement sequence and reading out the data of the movement sequence from a data memory;

carrying out the assessment on a basis of temporal proportions of a rotational movement or on a basis of a number of revolutions;

using movement sequences of all the axes for determining the service interval; and

determining a common servicing interval for all the axes by the assessment of an axis which, in absolute or relative terms, has a highest assessment.

2. The method according to claim 1, which further comprises representing at least one of the movement sequences, an absolute assessment, and a relative assessment on a display device.

3. The method according to claim 1, which further comprises determining a servicing time for the axis or a common servicing time for all the axes by taking into account the servicing interval determined together with a number of working cycle completed so far.

4. The method according to claim 1, which further comprises

using axis-specific parameters selected from the group consisting of a type of motor of a drive motor of the axis, a size of the motor of the drive motor of the axis, a transmission of the axis, a transmission backlash, a performance or work or maximum torque in a production cycle, for determining the servicing interval.

5. The method according to claim 4, which further comprises determining the axis-specific parameter empirically or by a neural method.

6. A system for determining a servicing requirement of axes of a robot arm of an industrial robot, the system comprising:

a data module containing data of movement sequences of all the axes of the robot arm during at least one working cycle of the industrial robot;

an analysis module for analyzing rotational movements of the at least one axis from the data; and

an assessment module for determining a servicing interval for the robot arm by performing an assessment of the rotational movements, said assessment module additionally determining a common servicing interval for all the axes by the assessment of an axis which, in absolute or relative terms, has a highest assessment.

7. The system according to claim 6, further comprising a robot controller, and at least one of said data module, said analysis module and said assessment module is disposed in said robot controller.

8. The system according to claim 6, further comprising an evaluation device connected to a robot controller of the industrial robot, and at least one of said data module, said analysis module and said assessment module, is disposed in said evaluation device.

9. The system according to claim 7, wherein the data of the movement sequence can be read out from the robot controller as direct or indirect values.

10. The system according to claim 6, wherein said data module, said analysis module and said assessment module are in each case computer program products.