Robot control apparatus and robot system

• US 8,396,599 B2
• Filed: 11/02/2005
• Issued: 03/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/02/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Yaskawa Denki, Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Yaskawa Denki, Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Inventors: Matsuo, Kenji, Ono, Saburo
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Khoi
• Assistant Examiner(s): Holwerda, Stephen
• Application Number:
  US11/718,441
• Publication Number:
  US 20080009973A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,687 Days
• Field of Search: 700/246, 700/245, 700/90, 700/248, 700/264, 715/772, 715/966, 715/967
• US Class Current: 700/264
• CPC Class Codes: B25J 9/1671 characterised by simulation, either to verify existing program or to create and verify new program, CAD/CAM oriented, graphic oriented programming systems
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/39117 Task distribution between involved manipulators
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/40392 Programming, visual robot programming language

Abstract

It is an object of the invention to provide a robot system including a graphics language capable of comprehensively and easily controlling operation of each robot in a robot system constituted by a plurality of pieces of robots.

A robot system of the invention in order to achieve the above-described object is constituted by a plurality of pieces of robots, a robot control apparatus 10 for controlling based on a robot program, and a robot instruction apparatus 11 connected to the robot control apparatus 10 for displaying the robot program, the robot control apparatus 10 includes a unit registration portion 1 for arbitrarily combining one piece or more of robots to define one unit, a task registration portion 2 for allocating a task to each unit, and a graphics language processing portion 3 capable of forming the robot program for each task as a graphic program in the robot system for simultaneously controlling one piece or more of robots.

Claims

1. A robot control apparatus for controlling one or more of a plurality of pieces of robots simultaneously based on a robot program, comprising:

a unit registration portion where multiple units are registered by an operator, with each of said units being a combination of one or more of the plurality of pieces of robots,

a task registration portion where multiple tasks are registered by the operator, with each of said tasks being assigned to each of the units, and

a graphics language processing portion for forming the robot program as a graphical program for each of the tasks,

wherein;

the graphical program is displayed as a two-dimensional matrix on a display member of a robot instruction apparatus connected to the robot control apparatus,

sequence numbers and the multiple tasks are displayed on the matrix in a perpendicular direction to each other,

a robot in the unit assigned to one of the tasks operates in accordance with a program assigned to the one task,

the program assigned to the one task is displayed in the matrix at the intersection of one of the sequence numbers and the one task,

the operator performs registration by operating the robot instruction apparatus, and

the program assigned to the one task is selected from a plurality of programs assignable to the one task, each of the plurality of programs including a distinct set of instructions corresponding to distinct combinations of the plurality of pieces of robots.

2. The robot control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the graphics language processing portion displays the sequence numbers at each row of the display member of the robot instruction apparatus, and displays the robot program executed at each of the tasks in a column.

3. The robot control apparatus according to claim 2, wherein

the graphics language processing portion makes execution transit to a next step after finishing to execute a current step.

4. The robot control apparatus according to claim 2, wherein

the graphics language processing portion makes the execution transit to a predetermined step based on an external input signal to the robot control apparatus after finishing to execute the current step.

5. A robot system comprising:

a plurality of pieces of robots,

a robot control apparatus according to claim 1 for simultaneously controlling one or more of the plurality of pieces of robots based on a robot program, and

the robot instruction apparatus connected to the robot control apparatus and including the display member and an edit member of the robot program.

6. The robot control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the multiple units are registered on the display member of the robot instruction apparatus.