CN110228693B

CN110228693B - Feeding device

Info

Publication number: CN110228693B
Application number: CN201910451772.XA
Authority: CN
Inventors: 入江进; 迎邦晓
Original assignee: Sinfonia Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Sinfonia Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2013-07-31
Filing date: 2014-07-31
Publication date: 2022-01-11
Anticipated expiration: 2034-07-31
Also published as: KR20150015379A; CN110228693A; JP6260133B2; TWI620701B; CN104338685A; JP2015030567A; CN104338685B; TW201522184A; KR102196116B1

Abstract

The present invention provides a feeder, comprising: a feeder main body having a conveying path for conveying a workpiece by vibration and a driving unit for vibrating the conveying path; a speed detection unit that detects a conveyance speed of the workpiece conveyed on the conveyance path; and a drive control unit that controls a drive state of the drive unit based on the conveyance speed of the workpiece calculated by the speed detection unit.

Description

Feeding device

The present application is a divisional application of an application having an application date of 2014, 31/7, a national application number of 201410375415.7 and an invention name of "feeder".

Technical Field

The present invention relates to a parts feeder (parts feeder) capable of controlling timing of removing a workpiece having an inappropriate appearance or posture from a conveyance path or correcting the posture of the workpiece on the conveyance path in accordance with a conveyance speed of the workpiece, and capable of appropriately applying a force for removing or correcting the posture to the workpiece having an inappropriate appearance or posture.

Background

Conventionally, a feeder is generally a feeder that conveys a workpiece, such as an electronic component, as a conveyance target object, to a predetermined supply destination along a conveyance path, and patent document 1 discloses a feeder that can discriminate the posture of the workpiece and exclude the workpiece having an inappropriate posture (an improper posture) from the conveyance path during conveyance. More specifically, the feeder disclosed in patent document 1 is configured such that: an image pickup device picks up image data of a plurality of workpieces conveyed at a predetermined interval on a conveying path, processes the image data to determine the postures of the workpieces, and removes the workpieces with improper postures (incorrect postures) from the conveying path by using compressed air ejected from an air ejection device.

Patent document 1: japanese laid-open patent publication No. 6-197349

Disclosure of Invention

Problems to be solved by the invention

However, in the feeder disclosed in patent document 1, since the shutter timing of the area scan camera (area scan camera) is generally synchronized with the imaging area and the workpiece position using the laser sensor, it is necessary to convey a plurality of workpieces at predetermined intervals, and there is a problem that the number of conveyed workpieces per unit time is small and the discharge capability of discharging the workpieces to the supply destination is low.

To solve this problem, a feeder 250 having the configuration shown in fig. 8 is considered. In the feeder 250, the plurality of workpieces 3 are conveyed in the conveying direction in a state of being in close contact, and the photographing is continuously performed using the surface scanning camera 202. Then, image data captured by the area scan camera 202 is captured via the image capturing unit 254a, and the captured image data is subjected to preprocessing such as binarization by the preprocessing unit 254 b. Then, the posture of the workpiece is determined from the preprocessed image data using the posture determination unit 254 c. The feeder 250 is configured to include an exclusion unit 5, the exclusion unit 5 having an air injection nozzle 50 that injects compressed air to a predetermined exclusion position, and when the position detection unit 254d for detecting the position of the workpiece 3 with respect to the imaging area determines that the workpiece 3 is at the predetermined position within the imaging area, the compressed air is injected from the air injection nozzle 50 after a predetermined time has elapsed from the determination. In order to avoid the ejection of compressed air also to the workpiece 3 existing near the workpiece 3 to be excluded, the ejection range of the air ejection nozzle 50 is narrowed, and the predetermined time is set to a time at which the compressed air is ejected toward the center in the conveyance direction of the side surface of the workpiece 3 when the workpiece is conveyed at the set conveyance speed.

In the feeder such as the feeder 250, the conveying speed of the workpiece is roughly determined according to the amplitude, the vibration angle, and the driving frequency of the feeder body, but in reality, depending on various causes such as the friction coefficient, humidity, and static electricity between the workpiece 3 and the conveying path 10 due to variations in the manufacturing process of different workpieces, the same workpiece, the shape of the conveying path 10, and the surface treatment of the conveying path 10, the conveying speed of the workpiece 3 may gradually deviate from a set value due to, for example, collision of a plurality of workpieces 3 with each other on the conveying path 10, and in this case, the workpiece 3 to be excluded is excluded from the conveying path 10 while being horizontally rotated by injecting compressed air not to the center in the conveying direction of the side surface of the workpiece 3 but to the end. Therefore, the workpiece 3 to be excluded interferes with the adjacent workpiece 3, and the adjacent workpiece 3 changes in posture, so that there is a possibility that the workpiece 3 having an inappropriate posture is conveyed to the supply destination. In order to prevent this, it is considered that the workpieces 3 are conveyed with a gap therebetween so that the workpieces 3 to be excluded do not apply a rotational torque to the adjacent workpieces 3 even if the workpieces 3 are horizontally rotated, but in this case, as described above, the number of conveyed workpieces 3 per unit time decreases, and there is a problem that the discharge efficiency of discharging the workpieces to the supply destination decreases.

Further, there are some conventional feeders that deal with an improper posture of a workpiece by correcting the posture without excluding the workpiece determined to be improper posture, and correct the posture by, for example, reversing the workpiece by jetting compressed air from below. In such a feeder, if the conveyance speed of the workpiece deviates from a set value, compressed air may not be injected to a desired position on the workpiece, and the posture may not be corrected stably.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems effectively, and an object of the present invention is to provide a feeder capable of appropriately applying a force for removing or correcting a posture to a desired position in a conveying direction of a workpiece even when a conveying speed of the workpiece changes from a set value.

Means for solving the problems

In view of the above problems, the present invention adopts the following aspects.

That is, a feeder according to the present invention includes: a feeder main body having a conveying path for conveying a workpiece; a workpiece processing unit configured to perform processing for excluding a workpiece from the conveyance path or performing posture correction on the conveyance path on the workpiece passing through a workpiece processing position set in the conveyance path; a workpiece quality determination unit that performs a quality determination process on the workpiece on an upstream side of the workpiece processing position; a command output unit that outputs a command for performing the processing to the workpiece processing unit when the workpiece quality determination unit determines that the workpiece is not a workpiece having a predetermined appearance or posture; a speed detection unit that detects a conveying speed of the workpiece conveyed on the conveying path; and a timing control unit that controls a timing at which the instruction output unit outputs the instruction, based on a detection result of the speed detection unit.

Here, the quality determination of the workpiece means determining whether or not the appearance and posture of the workpiece are predetermined.

With this configuration, the workpiece processing means determines whether or not the workpiece conveyed on the conveyance path of the feeder body has a predetermined appearance or posture, and the speed detection means detects the conveyance speed. When the workpiece processing means determines that the workpiece is not in the predetermined appearance or posture, the timing control means outputs a command for performing the processing from the command output means at a timing controlled by the timing control means based on the conveyance speed of the workpiece detected by the speed detection means. In this way, the timing of outputting the command can be controlled in accordance with the conveyance speed of the workpiece being conveyed at the upstream side of the workpiece processing means, and therefore, even if the conveyance speed of the workpiece deviates from the set value, the force from the workpiece processing means can be applied to the desired position of the workpiece. Therefore, even when a plurality of workpieces are conveyed in close contact with each other, the above-described processing relating to the elimination and the posture correction can be performed on the workpiece to be eliminated without affecting the posture of the workpiece in the vicinity of the workpiece to be eliminated.

As a specific embodiment, the following structure can be cited: the work processing unit includes a biasing unit that biases the work at the work processing position, and a target position at which the biasing is to be applied is set in advance in the work, and the feeder further includes: a line scan camera (line scan camera) having a plurality of image pickup elements arranged orthogonally to a conveying direction of the workpiece, and configured to pick up images of the workpiece passing through an image pickup position set on the conveying path at predetermined intervals; and an image capturing means for capturing an image obtained by intermittently capturing an entire region from a front end to a rear end of the workpiece by the line scan camera in real time, wherein the capturing is considered to be completed to the rear end of the workpiece at a time point when the workpiece passes through the capturing position, the timing control means sets a standby time to apply a biasing force to the target position set on the workpiece as a result of the movement of the workpiece from the capturing position at the speed detected by the speed detection means during a period in which a delay time including at least an image processing time required from the completion of the capturing by the image capturing means to the completion of the quality determination processing by the workpiece quality determination means is elapsed, the standby time being a time required from the completion of the capturing by the image capturing means to the completion of the quality determination processing by the workpiece quality determination means, and the standby time is a time from the completion of the determination by the workpiece quality determination means to the completion of the quality determination means, the workpiece being determined to not to have a predetermined appearance or posture The command output means outputs the command, and the mechanical transmission time is a time from when the workpiece processing means receives the command to when the workpiece is subjected to the processing to apply the biasing force to the workpiece.

As a more specific configuration related to the timing control means, the following configurations can be cited: the timing control means sets the standby time t α according to the following equation when the image processing time is tp seconds, the standby time is t α seconds, the mechanical transfer time is td seconds, the conveying speed of the workpiece detected by the speed detection means is vwm/sec, the distance from the imaging position to the workpiece processing position is L meters, and the distance from the rear end of the workpiece to the target position is lwm meters,

tα＝{(L-Lw)/Vw}-tp-td。

in order to configure the speed detection means to calculate the conveyance speed using the line scan camera, it is preferable that: the speed detection unit is provided with the length of the workpiece in the conveying direction and the imaging interval of the line scanning camera, and is provided with the imaging times acquired by the imaging times acquisition unit, so that the time required for imaging, which is acquired from the imaging times and the imaging interval of the line scanning camera, is regarded as the time required for the workpiece to pass through the imaging position, and the conveying speed of the workpiece is calculated from the time required for imaging and the length of the workpiece in the conveying direction.

In particular, in order to share data used in the speed detection means and the workpiece quality determination means and shorten the time from the start of imaging by the line scan camera to the setting of the standby time t α, it is desirable to have the following configuration: the image processing apparatus further includes a preprocessing unit that joins the image data captured by the image capturing unit in the order of capturing images to generate composite image data in which a single workpiece appears substantially as a whole, wherein the number-of-times-of-capturing acquiring unit acquires the number of times of capturing based on the number of pixels of the composite image data and the number of pixels of the image data acquired by one capturing, and the workpiece quality determining unit performs the quality determination process based on the composite image data.

ADVANTAGEOUS EFFECTS OF INVENTION

According to the present invention described above, the following feeder can be provided: the feeder can control the timing of outputting commands for performing processing related to the removal and posture correction of the workpiece according to the conveying speed of the workpiece, and can cause the biasing force from the removal unit or the posture correction unit to act on the desired position of the workpiece even if the conveying speed of the workpiece changes from a set value.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a side view showing a feeder according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a plan view showing a measuring unit provided in the feeder.

Fig. 3 is an explanatory diagram for explaining the timing control processing performed by the feeder.

Fig. 4 is a timing chart for explaining the operation of the feeder.

Fig. 5 is a side view showing a modification of the present invention.

Fig. 6 is a side view showing a modification of the present invention.

Fig. 7 is a side view showing a modification of the present invention.

Fig. 8 is a side view of a feeder that solves the problems of the conventional feeder.

Description of the reference numerals

1: a feeder body; 2: a line scan camera; 3: a workpiece; 3 a: a front end of the workpiece; 3 b: a rear end of the workpiece; 5: a workpiece processing unit (excluding unit); 7: a speed detection unit (speed detection device for the feeder); 10: a conveying path; 40: an image capturing unit; 41: a pre-processing unit; 41 c: a composite image data generating unit (composite image data generating unit); 42 a: a shooting frequency acquisition unit (shooting frequency acquisition unit); 44: a workpiece quality determination unit (posture determination unit); 45: an instruction output unit; 46: an opportunity control unit; 50: a force application unit (air injection nozzle); 100: a feeder; p1: a shooting position; p2: a workpiece processing position (excluding position); pw: a target location.

Detailed Description

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

As shown in fig. 1, a feeder 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention is a feeder that conveys a plurality of workpieces 3 as a conveyance object at a relatively high speed to a supply destination, not shown, along a conveyance path 10 of a feeder body 1, and the workpieces 3 are conveyed in a close contact state from the left side to the right side in fig. 1.

The feeder body 1 includes the conveyance path 10 and the drive unit 11, and is configured to convey the plurality of workpieces 3 on the conveyance path 10 by vibrating the conveyance path 10 using the drive unit 11. The workpiece 3 is conveyed with its longitudinal direction or short-side direction parallel to the conveying direction of the workpiece 3.

The line scan camera 2 is provided above an imaging position (imaging point) P1 set on the conveyance path 10. The line scan camera 2 includes a plurality of highly sensitive image pickup elements arranged in a line orthogonal to the conveying direction of the workpiece 3 (extending direction of the conveying path 10), and picks up an image of the workpiece 3 conveyed on the conveying path 10. Regarding the imaging range (imaging region) of the line scan camera 2, when the longitudinal direction of the workpiece 3 is parallel to the conveying direction, the imaging range (imaging region) is set to a range in which a part of the longitudinal direction of the workpiece 3 is imaged in the conveying direction of the workpiece 3, a range in which the entire short-side direction of the workpiece 3 is imaged in a direction orthogonal to the conveying direction of the workpiece 3, and when the short-side direction of the workpiece 3 is parallel to the conveying direction, the imaging range (imaging region) is set to a range in which a part of the short-side direction of the workpiece 3 is imaged in the conveying direction of the workpiece 3, and a range in which the entire longitudinal direction of the workpiece 3 is imaged in a direction orthogonal to the conveying direction of the workpiece 3.

The position where the line scan camera 2 is provided is important for timing to remove the workpiece 3 having an inappropriate posture, and in order to accurately set the line scan camera 2 at a desired position, a measurement unit (a measurement device for a line scan camera) 10a shown in fig. 2 is provided on the conveyance path 10. The measurement unit 10a is attached with a first scale 10ab extending in a direction orthogonal to the conveying direction of the workpiece 3 and a second scale 10ac indicated as a binary point at a fixed distance, and the first scale 10ab is aligned with an exclusion position (exclusion operating point) P2 described later, and the second scale 10ac extending from the vicinity of the exclusion position P2 to below the line scanning camera 2 is confirmed in the image data acquired by the line scanning camera 2, whereby the imaging position P1 can be set at a position at a desired distance from the exclusion position P2.

The image data acquired by the line scan camera 2 shown in fig. 1 has a smaller number of pixels and a smaller amount of data than a surface scan camera in which a plurality of image pickup devices are arranged in a mesh shape and the entire workpiece 3 is set as an image pickup range. The line scan camera 2 operates to continuously photograph the workpiece 3 at a fixed interval before the workpiece 3 reaches the photographing position P1, photographs the workpiece 3 conveyed toward the downstream side a plurality of times while passing through the photographing position P1, and acquires a plurality of image data at different positions of the workpiece 3, each of which appears from the leading end 3a (the workpiece end on the downstream side in the conveying direction, see fig. 3) to the trailing end 3b (the workpiece end on the upstream side in the conveying direction, see fig. 3) of the workpiece 3. The acquired image data is transmitted to a control device (controller) 4 described later every time imaging is performed.

The line scan camera 2 is generally used when an image pickup object with a fixed conveyance speed is picked up, or when an image pickup object with a fixed conveyance speed is picked up after synchronization with the speed or position of the image pickup object is obtained using an encoder or the like although the conveyance speed is not fixed, and is generally difficult to use in a feeder in which the conveyance speed of the workpiece 3 as the image pickup object is difficult to stabilize due to the conveyance by the vibration of the conveyance path 10, but in the present embodiment, the inconvenience of using the line scan camera 2 due to the variation in the conveyance speed is eliminated by capturing the leading end 3a and the trailing end 3b of the workpiece 3. This will be explained later.

The control device 4 shown in fig. 1 is constituted by a normal microcomputer unit including a CPU, a memory, an interface, and the like, not shown, and stores an appropriate program in the memory, and the CPU successively reads the program and functions as an image capturing unit 40, a preprocessing unit 41, a posture determining unit 44, a speed calculating unit 42, a command outputting unit 45, and a timing control unit 46 in cooperation with peripheral hardware resources.

Each time shooting is performed, the image acquisition unit 40 instantaneously acquires image data acquired by the line scan camera 2 into the control device 4. The preprocessing unit 41 includes a binarization processing section 41a as binarization processing means, an edge detection section 41b as edge detection means, and a composite image data generation section 41c as composite image data generation means, and when image data is captured via the image capture unit 40, the binarization processing section 41a performs predetermined preprocessing such as binarization processing on each piece of image data at once. The edge detection unit 41b discriminates the leading edge 3a and the trailing edge 3b of the workpiece 3 from the image data by appropriate image processing (see fig. 3). For example, in the image data, the color tone or the like is different between a portion where the workpiece 3 appears and a portion where a portion other than the workpiece 3 appears (specifically, the conveying path 10), and since there is some gap between the workpieces 3 even when the workpieces 3 are conveyed in close contact in the conveying direction, in the image data in which the leading end 3a or the trailing end 3b of the workpiece 3 is photographed, a portion having a different color density appears in the entire direction orthogonal to the conveying direction of the workpiece 3. The end portion detecting section 41b detects the leading end 3a and the trailing end 3b of the workpiece 3 appearing in the image data based on such a difference in color density or the like (image discrimination). Alternatively, the following may be configured: the edge detection unit 41b detects the leading edge 3a and the trailing edge 3b by determining the R shape at the corner of the workpiece 3 in the image data. Then, the composite image data generating unit 41c joins the image data from the front end 3a where the workpiece 3 appears to the image data from the rear end 3b where the workpiece 3 appears in the order of photographing, and generates composite image data as two-dimensional image data of one workpiece 3 where substantially the entire workpiece appears.

The posture determining unit 44 as a workpiece quality determining unit performs posture determining processing as quality determining processing for determining the posture (image determination) of the workpiece 3 based on the composite image data. For example, image data of the workpiece 3 having an appropriate posture is stored in the memory in advance, and the posture of the workpiece 3 is determined by comparing the synthesized image data with the image data stored in the memory by pattern matching. The posture other than the predetermined posture may be, for example, a posture in which the front and back surfaces are reversed or a front-back direction is reversed. In this way, the image capturing unit 40, the preprocessing unit 41, and the posture identifying unit 44 constitute the image processing apparatus 8 for a feeder of the present invention that identifies the posture of the workpiece 3. As described above, the present embodiment is configured to detect the leading end 3a and the trailing end 3b of the workpiece 3 in the image data, and therefore, even if the conveying speed of the workpiece 3 changes, composite image data in which substantially the entire one workpiece 3 appears can be obtained by joining the image data in which the leading end 3a of the workpiece 3 appears to the image data in which the trailing end 3b of the workpiece 3 appears in the order of photographing, and for the above-described reason, the posture of the workpiece 3 can be determined using the line scan camera 2 which is not generally used in the conventional feeder.

The speed calculation unit 42 performs speed calculation processing for calculating the conveyance speed of the workpiece 3 using the composite image data used for attitude determination, and specifically calculates the conveyance speed Vw (m/s) of the workpiece 3 according to the following expression (1).

Vw＝Lw1/S·A···(1)

Here, S is a scanning rate of the line scan camera 2, that is, an imaging interval (sec) of the line scan camera 2, a is the number of times (times) required for the line scan camera 2 to image substantially the entire single workpiece 3, that is, from the front end side to the rear end side of the workpiece 3, and Lw1 is a conveying direction length (m) of the workpiece 3. The speed calculation unit 42 regards the time required for photographing, which is the product of the photographing interval S of the line scan camera 2 and the number of times of photographing a, as the time required for the workpiece 3 to pass through the photographing position P1, and calculates the conveying speed of the workpiece 3 from the time required for photographing and the conveying direction length Lw1 of the workpiece 3. The conveyance direction length Lw1 of the workpiece 3 is set in advance as the actual conveyance direction length of the workpiece 3. Further, the conveying direction length Lw1 of the workpiece 3 and the imaging interval S of the line scan camera 2 are input via the input unit 48. The speed calculation unit 42 includes a shooting count acquisition unit 42a as a shooting count acquisition unit, and the shooting count acquisition unit 42a calculates the shooting count a based on the number of pixels of the image data obtained by one shooting and the number of pixels of the synthesized image data.

In this way, the image capturing unit 40, the preprocessing unit 41, and the speed calculating unit 42 constitute the speed detecting device 7 for the feeder of the present invention that detects the conveying speed of the workpiece 3. The conveying speed of the workpiece 3 calculated by the speed detector 7 for a feeder is displayed on the display unit 47 shown in fig. 1, in addition to being used for timing control for eliminating the workpiece 3 having an incorrect posture, which will be described below. The conveying speed of the workpiece 3 thus calculated may be used as data for determining whether the workpiece 3 is being conveyed or stopped.

When the posture determining unit 44 determines that the posture is not appropriate (the posture is not correct), the command output unit 45 outputs a command for performing an excluding process (an excluding operation) of excluding the workpiece 3 set at an excluding position P2 as a workpiece processing position of the conveying path 10 from the conveying path 10 to the excluding unit 5 as the workpiece processing unit shown in fig. 1. The removal unit 5 includes an air injection nozzle 50 as a biasing unit that injects compressed air to a removal position P2 set on the downstream side in the conveyance direction of the workpiece 3 from the imaging position P1, and the workpiece 3 is biased by the compressed air injected from the air injection nozzle 50 to be removed from the conveyance path 10. The air injection nozzle 50 is inputted with an energization command as the command and injects compressed air. A target position Pw (see fig. 3) for applying the biasing force is set in advance in the workpiece 3, and in the present embodiment, the center in the conveying direction of the side surface of the workpiece 3 facing the eliminating unit 5 is set as the target position Pw. By applying a biasing force to the target position Pw, the workpiece 3 to be excluded can be suppressed from moving while rotating horizontally when excluded from the conveyance path 10. The elimination processing in the present invention includes processing of dropping the workpiece 3 from the conveying path 10 to a workpiece receiving portion or the like located below the conveying path 10, processing of distributing the workpiece 3 to any one of the conveying paths 10 branched from the elimination position P2, and the like.

The timing control unit 46 controls the timing of outputting the energization command to the ejection nozzle 50 by the command output unit 45 based on the conveyance speed of the workpiece 3 calculated by the speed calculation unit 42. Specifically, by calculating the standby time t α (sec) from the time when the attitude determination unit 44 determines that the attitude is incorrect to the time when the command output unit 45 outputs the energization command (see fig. 4) and controlling the timing when the command output unit 45 outputs the energization command to the air injection nozzle 50 based on the standby time t α according to the following expression (2), it is possible to apply the biasing force to the target position Pw even when the conveyance speed of the workpiece 3 changes from the set value.

tα＝{(L-Lw2)/Vw}-tp-td···(2)

Here, Vw is the conveying speed (m/s) of the workpiece 3 conveyed on the conveying path 10 (see fig. 3), L is the distance (m) from the imaging position P1 to the exclusion position P2 (see fig. 3), Lw2 is the distance (m) from the rear end 3b of the workpiece 3 to the target position Pw (see fig. 3), and tp is the image processing time (sec) required from the completion of the capturing by the image capturing unit 40 to the completion of the posture determination by the posture determination unit 44 (see fig. 4). When the time required for the preprocessing, the posture determination processing, and the speed calculation processing is always fixed, the image processing time tp is a fixed value or a set value. On the other hand, when the image processing time tp is configured to change in accordance with an increase or decrease in the number of pixels of the synthesized image data due to a change in the transport speed, the control device 4 counts the image processing time tp. td is a mechanical transmission time (sec) required from the reception of the energization command by the eliminating means 5 to the application of the biasing force to the workpiece 3 by the eliminating process (see fig. 4), and is a parameter setting for each eliminating means 5. The distance L, the propagation time td, and the like are input via the input unit 48. In the present embodiment, the distance L from the imaging position P1 to the excluding position P2 is obtained by using the measuring means, but may be obtained from an actual object.

The operation of the feeder 100 configured as described above will be described with reference to the timing chart shown in fig. 4. In the following, the operation until the one workpiece 3 with an inappropriate posture is captured by the line scan camera 2 and then eliminated by the eliminating means 5 is described.

When the workpiece 3 conveyed on the conveying path 10 is imaged at time t01, the image data thus acquired is immediately taken (transferred) via the image taking-in unit 40, and the binarization processing section 41a performs preprocessing such as binarization on the image data. The end portion detection unit 41b detects the leading end 3a and the trailing end 3b of the workpiece 3, and detects the leading end 3a of the workpiece 3 from the image data acquired at time t 01. The image capturing is also performed sequentially at predetermined intervals after the image capturing at time t01, and the image data is captured and preprocessed immediately every time the image capturing is performed. Then, when the trailing end 3b of the workpiece 3 is recognized by the end portion detecting unit 41b in the image data acquired by the photographing at time t02, the synthetic image data generating unit 41c starts generating synthetic image data at time t03, and performs the posture determination processing by the posture determination unit 44 and the velocity calculation processing by the velocity calculation unit 42 based on the synthetic image data. The processing up to the time t03 is performed by hardware (e.g., an FPGA (field-programmable gate array)), and the processing after the time t03 is performed in software by executing a program stored in a memory. After that, the timing control unit 46 calculates the standby time t α, and the timing control unit 46 controls the instruction output unit 45 so that the energization instruction is output at a time t05 at which the standby time t α has elapsed from the time t 04. Then, the compressed air is ejected from the air ejection nozzle 50 of the evacuation unit 5, and the biasing force based on the air actually acts on the workpiece 3 at the time t06 when the transmission time td elapses from the time t 05. It is assumed that, when the posture of the workpiece 3 after the posture determination processing is appropriate and the posture is determined to be the predetermined posture by the posture determination processing, the processing (the output of the energization command and the ejection from the air ejection nozzle 50) for removing the workpiece 3 from the conveyance path 10 is not performed. Although the operation has been described using one workpiece 3 for the sake of easy understanding in the present description, since the workpieces 3 are actually continuously conveyed in a close contact state, the processes until the image capturing, the image data capturing, and the preprocessing are always continuously performed, and the process (intermittent operation) after the time t03 is performed once after the image data of one workpiece 3 is acquired.

In this way, the work 3 having an inappropriate posture is excluded, and only the work 3 having an appropriate posture is supplied to the supply destination.

As described above, the feeder 100 of the present embodiment includes: a feeder body 1 having a conveying path 10 for conveying the workpiece 3; an exclusion unit 5 as a workpiece processing unit that performs an exclusion process of excluding the workpiece 3 from the conveyance path 10, the workpiece 3 passing through an exclusion position P2 set as a workpiece processing position in the conveyance path 10; a posture determination unit 44 as a good/bad judgment unit for the workpiece 3, which performs a posture determination process for the workpiece 3 as a good/bad judgment process on the upstream side of the exclusion position P2; a command output unit 45 that outputs an energization command as a command for performing the exclusion process to the exclusion unit 5 when the posture determination unit 44 determines that the posture is an incorrect posture other than the predetermined posture; a speed detector 7 for the feeder as a speed detecting means for detecting a conveying speed of the workpiece 3 conveyed on the conveying path 10; and a timing control unit 46 for controlling the timing at which the command output unit 45 outputs the energization command, based on the detection result of the feeder speed detection device 7.

With this configuration, the posture of the workpiece 3 conveyed on the conveyance path 10 of the feeder main body is determined by the eliminating means 5, and the conveyance speed is calculated by the feeder speed detecting device 7. When the excluding unit 5 determines that the attitude is incorrect, an energization command for performing an excluding process is output from the command output unit 45 at a timing controlled by the timing control unit 46 based on the conveying speed of the workpiece 3 detected by the speed detecting device for feeder 7. In this way, the timing of outputting the energization command can be controlled in accordance with the conveyance speed of the workpiece 3 being conveyed at the position on the upstream side of the discharge means 5, and therefore, even if the conveyance speed of the workpiece 3 deviates from the set value, the biasing force from the discharge means 5 can be applied to the desired position of the workpiece 3. Therefore, even when a plurality of workpieces 3 are conveyed in close contact, the workpiece 3 to be excluded can be subjected to the exclusion processing without affecting the posture of the workpiece 3 next to the workpiece 3 to be excluded.

Specifically, the eliminating unit 5 includes an air jet nozzle 50 as a biasing unit, the air jet nozzle 50 biases the workpiece 3 at the eliminating position P2, and a target position Pw for the biasing is set in advance in the workpiece, and the feeder 100 further includes: a line scan camera 2 having a plurality of image pickup devices arranged orthogonally to the conveying direction of the workpiece 3, and adapted to pick up images of the workpiece 3 passing through an image pickup position P1 set on the conveying path 10 at predetermined intervals; and an image capturing unit 40 for capturing an image obtained by intermittently capturing an image of a region from the front end 3a to the rear end 3b of the workpiece 3 by the line scan camera 2, wherein the timing control unit 46 sets a standby time t α for applying a biasing force to a target position Pw set on the workpiece 3 as a result of movement of the workpiece 3 from the capturing position P1 at a speed calculated by the feeder speed detection device 7 during a period in which a delay time including at least an image processing time tp (sec) required from completion of capturing the workpiece 3 to completion of posture determination processing by the posture determination unit 44 when it is considered that capturing of the rear end 3b of the workpiece 3 is completed at a time point when the workpiece 3 passes the capturing position P1, the standby time t α (sec) is a time from when the posture determining unit 44 determines that the posture is incorrect to when the command outputting unit 45 outputs the energization command, and the mechanical transmission time td (sec) is a time from when the eliminating unit 5 receives the energization command to when the eliminating process applies the biasing force to the workpiece 3, and therefore, it is possible to appropriately cope with the situation in consideration of the delay element.

More specifically, when the conveying speed of the workpiece 3 calculated by the speed detector 7 for the feeder is Vw (m/s), the distance from the imaging position P1 to the excluding position P2 is l (m), and the distance from the rear end of the workpiece 3 to the target position Pw is Lw2(m), the timing control unit 46 sets the standby time t α according to the following equation, and thus, it is possible to instantaneously cope with the deviation of the conveying speed of each workpiece 3 by a simple calculation.

tα＝{(L-Lw2)/Vw}-tp-td

The structure is as follows: further, the apparatus is provided with an imaging number acquisition unit 42a as imaging number acquisition means, the imaging number acquisition unit 42a acquiring the number of times the line scan camera 2 images the workpiece 3 from the front end side to the rear end side, the feeder speed detection device 7 being supplied with the length in the conveying direction of the workpiece 3 and the imaging interval of the line scan camera 2, and the imaging number acquired by the imaging number acquisition unit 42a, whereby the time required for imaging, which is obtained from the imaging number and the imaging interval of the line scan camera 2, is regarded as the time required for the workpiece 3 to pass through the imaging position P1, and the conveying speed Vw of the workpiece 3 is calculated from the time required for imaging and the length in the conveying direction of the workpiece 3, and therefore, a device for detecting the conveying speed of the workpiece 3 does not need to be separately provided, and a structure capable of detecting the conveying speed is provided, and the cost rise caused thereby can be suppressed.

In particular, it is constituted: further, the apparatus is provided with a preprocessing unit 41 for generating composite image data in which a substantially entire single workpiece 3 appears by joining the image data captured by the image capturing unit 40 in the order of capturing images, the capturing number acquiring unit 42a acquires the capturing number based on the number of pixels of the composite image data and the number of pixels of the image data acquired by one capturing, and the posture discriminating unit 44 discriminates the posture of the workpiece 3 based on the composite image data, so that data used in the feeder speed detecting device 7 and the posture discriminating unit 44 are shared, and the time from the start of capturing images by the line scan camera 2 to the setting of the standby time t α can be shortened.

Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described above, the specific configurations of the respective portions are not limited to the above embodiments.

For example, in the present embodiment, the elimination process of eliminating the workpiece 3 determined to be inappropriate in posture from the conveyance path 10 is performed, but the following configuration may be adopted: as shown in fig. 5, the posture correcting means 6 is provided as the workpiece processing means in place of the eliminating means 5, and the posture of the workpiece 3 determined to be inappropriate in posture is corrected at a correction position P3 set on the conveying path 10. The posture correcting unit 6 includes an air jet nozzle 60, and the air jet nozzle 60 jets compressed air to the workpiece 3 through a hole, not shown, provided at the posture correcting position P3 of the conveying path 10, jets the compressed air from the air jet nozzle 60, and inverts or rotates the workpiece 3 located at the correcting position P3, thereby correcting the posture. The posture correction means 6 is not limited to this configuration as long as the posture of the workpiece can be corrected. The posture correcting unit 6 is configured to eject compressed air from the air ejection nozzle 60 when an energization command is output from the command output unit 45, and the timing control unit 46 controls the timing of outputting the energization command based on the detection results of the image processing device for feeder 8 and the speed detecting device for feeder 7.

In the present embodiment, the image processing device 8 for the feeder is used for determining the posture of the workpiece 3, but may be used for inspecting the appearance of the workpiece 3 such as the shape and color of the workpiece 3 and silk-screen characters on the workpiece 3. The image processing apparatus for a feeder in this case is configured to appropriately have a means for inspecting the appearance of the workpiece 3 in place of the posture discrimination means 44 for discriminating the posture of the workpiece 3.

As shown in fig. 6, the control device 154 may be configured to include a drive control unit 43, and the drive control unit 43 may control the drive unit 11 based on the conveyance speed of the workpiece 3 calculated by the speed calculation unit 42. The drive control means 43 compares the calculated conveyance speed of the workpiece 3 with a set value, and performs feedback control of the conveyance speed of the workpiece 3 by adjusting the amplitude and frequency of the drive means 11. With the feeder 151 having such a configuration, the feed speed of the workpiece can be adjusted to a set value even if the feed speed of the workpiece 3 changes, and the feed speed of the workpiece can be stabilized.

In the present embodiment, the shooting count acquisition means 42a uses the number of pixels of the synthesized image data in the calculation of the shooting count a applied to the expression (1), but instead of the number of pixels of the synthesized image data, a total value of the number of pixels in a plurality of image data from the image data on which the leading end 3a of the workpiece 3 appears to the image data on which the trailing end 3b of the workpiece 3 appears may be used. In addition, the number of times of image capturing by the line scan camera 2 may be directly counted to obtain the number of times of image capturing a. Specifically, as shown in fig. 7, the following structure is also possible: the control device 161 includes a counter unit 162, the counter unit 162 counts the number of times of image capturing by the line scan camera 2, and the image capturing number acquisition unit 42a acquires the count value of the counter unit 162 corresponding to the image data in which the front end 3a of the workpiece 3 is detected and the count value of the counter unit 162 corresponding to the image data in which the rear end 3b of the workpiece 3 is detected, based on the detection result of the end detection unit 41a, and acquires the image capturing number a based on these count values. The feeder 160 having such a configuration can also exhibit the same effects as those of the feeder 100 described above.

Further, although the present embodiment is configured to convey the plurality of workpieces 3 in close contact on the conveyance path 3, the present embodiment may be configured to convey the plurality of workpieces 3 at predetermined intervals. In addition, although a camera in which image pickup devices are arranged in a line is used as the line scan camera 2, a camera in which image pickup devices are arranged in two or more lines may be used as long as the effects of the present invention can be exerted.

In the present embodiment, the line scan camera 2 is used to image the workpiece 3, but a surface scan camera may be used instead. In the case of using the line scan camera 2, the distance of the workpiece 3 from the exclusion position P2 can be grasped by imaging the workpiece 3 using the line scan camera 2, but in the case of using the area scan camera, it is preferable to configure: further, a position detection means for detecting the position of the workpiece 3 with respect to the imaging range is provided, and the distance of the workpiece 3 from the excluding position P2 is grasped by detecting the position of the workpiece 3 within the imaging range using the position detection means. In the case of this configuration, it is preferable that: the timing at which the command output means 45 outputs the energization command is controlled based on the position of the workpiece 3 detected by the position detection means and the detection result of the feeder speed detection device 7.

In the present embodiment, the speed detection device for the feeder 7 is used as the speed detection means, but a conventional speed detection device such as a speed sensor may be used instead.

Other configurations can be variously modified within a range not departing from the gist of the present invention.

Claims

1. A feeder is characterized by comprising:

a feeder main body having a conveying path for conveying a workpiece by vibration and a driving unit for vibrating the conveying path;

a speed detection unit that detects a conveyance speed of the workpiece conveyed on the conveyance path; and

and a drive control unit that controls a driving state of the drive unit by comparing the calculated conveying speed of the workpiece with a set value, adjusting an amplitude and a frequency of the drive unit, and performing feedback control of the conveying speed of the workpiece, in consideration of a delay element that changes in accordance with the conveying speed, based on the conveying speed of the workpiece calculated by the speed detection unit.

2. The feeder of claim 1, further comprising:

a camera which has a plurality of image pickup elements arranged orthogonally to a conveying direction of the workpiece and picks up images of the workpiece passing through an image pickup range set on the conveying path at predetermined intervals; and

a position detection unit that detects a position of the workpiece with respect to the imaging range of the camera,

the feeder detects the position of the workpiece within the imaging range by the position detection means, and obtains a distance from an imaging position set on the conveyance path to a workpiece processing position set on the conveyance path.

3. The feeder of claim 2,

further comprising a command output means for outputting a command for performing the process to a workpiece processing means for performing a process of excluding the workpiece from the conveying path or correcting the posture of the workpiece on the conveying path,

the feeder controls the timing of the instruction output unit outputting the instruction based on the detection result of the speed detection unit and the position of the workpiece detected by the position detection unit.