JP2001009680A - Maintenance supporting system for machine tool - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a maintenance support system capable of precisely grasping the contents of troubles of a machine tool at remote sites, and promptly and exactly supporting maintenance of a user side. SOLUTION: This system comprises; a support demanding side terminal 20 provided in an installing position of a machine tool; a support providing side terminal 10 provided in a maintenance supporting side; and a communication means 40 transmitting data between the support demanding side terminal 20 and the support providing side terminal 10. The support demanding side terminal 20 has image input means 33, 34 entering the image of each machine tool portion, sound input means 24, 32, and a sound output means 25. The support providing side terminal 10 has a sound input means 13, an image display means 12, and a sound output means 14. Therefore, image data and sound data can be transmitted and received through the support demanding side terminal 20, the support providing side terminal 10, and the communication means 40, which enables the support providing side to precisely grasp the situation of the machine tool.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a maintenance support system capable of supporting maintenance of a machine tool from a place separated therefrom.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In general, maintenance of a machine tool shipped from a machine tool maker is performed by a maintenance person of the machine tool maker to a user in response to a request from a user who purchased the machine tool. It is a target.

However, it is practically impossible to arrange maintenance personnel near all users scattered over a wide area because it requires many personnel and is cost-prohibitive. In some cases, urgent repair is required. In such a case, the maintenance staff on the manufacturer side conventionally asks the user for details of the trouble by telephone communication, examines the contents, then communicates the remedy to the user by telephone communication, and repairs by the user. Helped them to do that.

[0004]

However, in the case of providing maintenance support by telephone communication, maintenance personnel on the manufacturer side and the user side can communicate with each other only by voice, that is, only limited information such as words. Color,
Problems that it is difficult to express the shape and condition accurately in words, and that the user side has little specialized technical knowledge, so that the maintenance staff at the manufacturer side cannot accurately grasp the situation of the trouble. was there.

[0005] For this reason, there has been a problem that a maintenance person on the manufacturer side cannot give an accurate instruction to the user on a countermeasure, and the user cannot perform quick and accurate maintenance. It is.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve such a problem, and it is an object of the present invention to accurately grasp the contents of a trouble of a machine tool in a remote place and to quickly and accurately support maintenance on a user side from the remote place. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a maintenance support system that can perform the maintenance.

[0007]

Means for Solving the Problems and Effects There is provided an invention according to claim 1 of the present invention for solving the above-mentioned problems, in order to support maintenance of a machine tool from a place separated from an installation place of the machine tool. System, a support requesting terminal provided at the installation location of the machine tool, a support providing terminal provided on the side supporting maintenance, and data between the support requesting terminal and the support providing terminal The support requesting terminal captures images of each part of the machine tool from the same direction and / or a different direction from the line of sight of the maintenance technician of the support requesting side and inputs the image. An image input unit, a voice input unit for inputting a voice of a support requesting side, and an image for displaying image data input from the support providing terminal via the communication unit and image data input from the image input unit. Display means, and voice output means for converting voice data input from the support providing terminal via the communication means into voice and outputting the voice, wherein the support providing terminal inputs an image of the support providing side Image input means for inputting, voice input means for inputting the voice of the support providing side, image display means for displaying image data input from the support requesting terminal via the communication means, and also via the communication means. Voice output means for converting voice data input from the support requesting terminal into voice and outputting the voice, and supporting the support requesting side via the support requesting terminal, the support providing side terminal and the communication means. Sending and receiving data to and from the provider,
It is characterized in that maintenance can be performed on the support requesting side based on an instruction from the support providing side.

[0008] According to the maintenance support system of the present invention, information necessary for the support providing side at the time of maintenance includes:
The image data of each part of the machine tool taken by the image input means of the support requesting terminal, and the voice data of the support requesting maintenance technician, the machine sound emitted from the machine tool, etc., input by the voice input means are It is transmitted to the support providing terminal via the communication means, the image of each part of the machine tool is displayed on the image display means of the support providing terminal,
Sound is output from the sound output means.

As described above, according to this system, the support providing side can obtain image information of each part of the machine tool in addition to audio as information necessary for maintenance.
Information that is difficult to convey by voice such as shape can also be obtained from the image information, and the status of the machine tool can be accurately grasped from the image information and the voice information.

[0010] Then, the coping method studied based on such accurate situation grasp is input to the support requesting terminal via the voice input means and the communication means of the support providing terminal as an instruction of the support providing side. Are output from the audio output means. Thus, the support requester can perform quick and accurate maintenance based on the instruction.

[0011] Further, since the support requesting side and the support providing side can exchange information using image information in addition to audio information, communication between the two can be ensured. In this sense, quick and accurate communication can be achieved. Maintenance can be performed.

Further, in the present invention, the image input means of the support requesting terminal according to the present invention captures each part of the machine tool from the same direction as the line of sight of the support requesting maintenance person and inputs the image. The image input means captures an image in the same direction as the line of sight of the support requesting maintenance person,
It is displayed on the image display means of the support providing terminal. This makes it possible for the maintenance staff on the support request side and the maintenance staff on the support provider side to exchange information while simultaneously looking at the same location, and to make communication between the two more reliable, and to achieve faster and more accurate maintenance. It can be performed.

On the other hand, if the image input means captures each part of the machine tool from a direction different from the line of sight of the support requesting maintenance person and inputs the image, the image input means provides support. An image in a direction different from the line of sight of the requesting maintenance person is captured and displayed on the image display means of the support providing side and the support requesting side terminal. In other words, the image input unit can take an image of a place, such as the back side of each part of the machine tool, which cannot be easily seen by the maintenance person. As a result, the support provider and the support requester can easily confirm a part that is normally difficult to confirm, thereby realizing a more accurate grasp of the situation and quick and accurate maintenance.

Therefore, the image input means of the support requesting terminal can take an image of each part of the machine tool from the same direction as the line of sight of the support requesting maintenance person and a direction different from this, and input the image. Preferably, it is In this way, the maintenance person on the support request side and the maintenance person on the support providing side can exchange information while simultaneously looking at the same place, making communication between the two more reliable and quicker. Precise maintenance can be performed, and the support provider can easily confirm places that are normally difficult to confirm, thereby realizing more accurate situation grasp and quick and accurate maintenance. Further, the support requester maintenance technician can view images taken in the same direction as the line of sight and in a different direction from the support requester's image display means, so what kind of image is transmitted to the support provider. Can be confirmed, and a more accurate grasp of the situation can be realized.

[0015]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of the maintenance support system according to the present embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 1, the maintenance support system 1 includes a service center or the like of a machine tool maker, that is, a support side terminal device 10 provided on a support providing side, and a machine tool installation side, ie, a support request side. Terminal device 2 provided in
0, and a communication means 40 for transmitting data between the support-side terminal device 10 and the user-side terminal device 20.

The support side terminal device 10 includes a television camera 11 for inputting a still image or a moving image, a television monitor 12 for displaying an image, and a microphone 13 for inputting sound.
And a speaker 14 for converting audio data into audio and outputting the audio
And communication processing of the image data input by the television camera 11 and the audio data input by the microphone 13, and the user-side terminal device 20.
And a communication processing device 15 for processing image data and audio data received from the Internet.

The user-side terminal device 20 comprises a user-side main terminal device 21 fixedly installed at an appropriate place, and a user-side sub-terminal device 30 that can be carried by a maintenance person on the user side.

The user-side main terminal device 21, like the support-side terminal device 10, includes a television camera 22 for inputting a still image or a moving image, and a television monitor 2 for displaying an image.
3, a microphone 24 for inputting sound, a speaker 25 for converting sound data into sound and outputting the same, and performing communication processing of image data input by the television camera 22 and sound data input by the microphone 24. Together with these data and the user-side secondary terminal device 3
0 to the support terminal device 10 via the communication means 40, while processing the image data and audio data received from the support terminal device 10 via the communication means 40, and A communication processing device 26 that outputs to the monitor 23 and the speaker 25 and distributes a signal received from the support-side terminal device 10 to the user-side sub-terminal device 30 is also provided.

The user-side sub-terminal device 30 includes a headphone 31 for converting voice data into voice and outputting the voice.
A microphone 32 for inputting sound, a main camera 33 and a sub camera 34 for inputting a still image or a moving image,
A television monitor 36 for displaying images; and a communication processing device 35 for performing communication processing of the obtained image data and audio data, and for processing the image data and audio data distributed from the communication processing device 26. As shown in FIG. 2, the main camera 33 is fixed to the headphones 31 so that the main camera 33 can take an image in the same direction as the line of sight of the maintenance staff on the user side. The sub-camera 34 is a pen-type small camera that can be operated by the maintenance staff with one hand, and can capture an image in a direction different from the line of sight of the maintenance staff.
Further, communication between the communication processing device 35 and the communication processing device 26 is performed by wireless communication 42.

A commercially available videophone can be used for the support terminal device 10 and the user main terminal device 20. In addition, a telephone line can be used as the communication means 40, and a wide area network such as ISDN or the Internet can be used.

According to the maintenance support system 1 having the above configuration, maintenance of the machine tool can be supported as follows.

First, a state is established in which communication is possible between the support terminal device 10 and the user terminal device 20 via the communication means 40. Thereby, the image data and the audio data of the support side input by the television camera 11 and the microphone 13 of the support side terminal apparatus 10 are transferred to the user side terminal apparatus 2.
0, the TV monitor 23, the speaker 25,
While being output to the TV monitor 36 and the headphones 31,
Image data and audio data on the user side input by the television camera 22, the microphone 24, the microphone 32, the main camera 33, and the sub camera 34 of the user-side terminal device 20 are transmitted to the support-side terminal device 10, and the television monitor 12 , And are output to the speaker 14. Also,
On the television monitor 36 of the user-side terminal device 20, a video taken by the user-side maintenance staff with the main camera 33 and the sub-camera 34 can also be displayed. Thus, the maintenance staff on the user side and the maintenance staff on the support side can communicate with each other through the support terminal device 10 and the user terminal device 20.

Next, the user-side maintenance person wears the user-side sub-terminal device 30 on his / her head, and operates the main camera 33 and the sub-camera 34 based on instructions from the support-side maintenance person. Transmitting necessary image data to the supporting terminal device 10 while confirming the image currently being captured by the television monitor 36, and transmitting own audio data to the supporting terminal device 10 via the microphone 32, Notify the maintenance staff of the machine tool of the trouble situation.

Next, the support side maintenance staff grasps the trouble situation from the transmitted image information and audio information,
The countermeasure is transmitted to the user side terminal device 20 using the television camera 11 and the microphone 13 of the support side terminal device 10 and transmitted to the user side maintenance staff. Then, the maintenance staff on the user side repairs the machine tool based on the instructed countermeasure.

As described above, according to the maintenance support system 1, the situation of the trouble of the machine tool can be confirmed not only from the verbal explanation from the maintenance staff on the user side, but also from the image of the actual state of the machine tool. As a result, the support-side maintenance person can quickly and accurately grasp the situation of the trouble, as if he / she actually went to the user side, and provided an appropriate countermeasure to the user-side maintenance person. Can be instructed.

Further, since the support side maintenance staff can transmit the maintenance information including the image information to the user side, it is possible to transmit the instruction regarding the maintenance to the user side accurately and promptly.

Further, since the main camera 33 captures an image in the same direction as the line of sight of the user side maintenance person and transmits it to the support side maintenance person, the user side maintenance person and the support side maintenance person Can simultaneously talk while looking at the same location, which facilitates communication between the two and enables quick and accurate support for maintenance.

Further, since an image in a direction different from the line of sight of the maintenance staff on the user side can be obtained using the sub camera 34, the maintenance staff on the user side can easily see the image, for example, behind the machine tool. The sub camera 34 can take an image of a place where the sub camera 34 cannot be used. By viewing this image on the television monitors 12 and 36, the support side maintenance person and the user side maintenance person can easily confirm places that are normally difficult to confirm. Precise maintenance can be performed.

Further, since the communication between the user-side sub-terminal device 30 and the user-side main terminal device 21 is performed by wireless communication, the maintenance person on the user side does not need to route the cable and can easily move. And can easily access the machine tool. In addition, since the user-side sub-terminal device 30 is mounted on the head of the user-side maintenance staff, the user-side maintenance staff interacts with the support-side maintenance staff while performing other operations with both hands. Maintenance work with good workability.

It is needless to say that, when the information from the user-side sub-terminal device 30 is not required, the information is exchanged between the user-side main terminal device 21 and the support-side terminal device 10 to maintain the information. Can provide assistance.

As described above, one embodiment of the present invention has been described in detail. However, it is needless to say that a specific embodiment of the present invention is not limited to this. For example, as shown in FIG.
The communication processing device 26 and the connection device 27 may be incorporated into the NC control device 50 of the machine tool to form the user-side main terminal device 21, and the support-side terminal device 10 may be further provided with input means including the keyboard 16.

As shown in the figure, the control unit 50 has a memory unit 51 storing a machining program, parameter information and the like.
A CRT control unit 53 for controlling display on the CRT 52; an NC control unit 55 for controlling the operation of each unit of the NC machine tool 54; a memory unit 51; the CRT control unit 53;
The connection device 27 is connected to the memory unit 51, the CRT control unit 53, the NC control unit 55, and the CP via a bus.
Connected to U56.

The maintenance support system 1 configured as described above
According to this, the parameter information stored in the memory unit 51 can be displayed on the television monitor 12 of the support-side terminal device 10 or the parameter information can be changed from the keyboard 16, so that the support-side maintenance can be performed. The person in charge can repair the machine tool directly.

In the above example, one support terminal device 1
However, as shown in FIG. 4, a plurality of support-side terminal devices 10 are installed in, for example, service centers distributed throughout the country, and a plurality of user-side terminal devices 2 are provided.
0 and the plurality of support-side terminal devices 10 are connected to a multipoint control device (M
CU) 60. In this way, the user can contact the support-side maintenance personnel in various places, and can also exchange between the support-side maintenance personnel, so that more complete maintenance support can be performed.

The television monitors 12, 23, and 36 of the support-side terminal device 10 and the user-side terminal device 20 display images taken by the user-side maintenance person with the main camera and the sub-camera and the support-side maintenance person with the television. The images taken by the camera 11 may be displayed not only individually but also simultaneously. In this way, the two images can be compared, and the maintenance person on the user side and the maintenance person on the support side can communicate more quickly.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a maintenance support system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of a user-side secondary terminal device.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a maintenance support system according to another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a maintenance support system according to another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 maintenance support system 10 support side terminal device 11 television camera 12 television monitor 13 microphone 14 speaker 15 communication processing device 20 user side terminal device 21 user side main terminal device 22 television camera 23 television monitor 24 microphone 25 speaker 26 communication processing device 27 connection Device 30 User-side sub-terminal device 31 Headphones 32 Microphone 33 Main camera 34 Sub-camera 35 Communication processing device 36 Television monitor 40 Communication means

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Seio Kanemoto 106 Kita-Koriyama-cho, Yamatokoriyama-shi, Nara, Japan Inside Mori Seiki Seisakusho Co., Ltd. Mori Seiki F term (reference) 3C042 RH05 RJ13 RJ20 5K101 KK12 LL01 LL12 NN06 NN07 NN12 NN14 NN18 9A001 HH18 HH23 LL09

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A system for supporting maintenance of a machine tool from a place separated from an installation place of the machine tool, comprising: a support requesting terminal provided at the installation place of the machine tool; And a communication means for transmitting data between the support requesting terminal and the support providing terminal, wherein the support requesting terminal is a support requester maintenance person. Image input means for imaging each part of the machine tool from the same direction as and / or different from the line of sight of the machine tool and inputting the images, voice input means for inputting the voice of the support requesting side, and the communication means Image display means for displaying the image data input from the support providing terminal and the image data input from the image input means; and voice data input from the support providing terminal via the communication means. Voice output means for converting and outputting, wherein the support providing side terminal includes an image input means for inputting an image of the support providing side, a voice input means for inputting a voice of the support providing side, and the communication means. Image display means for displaying image data input from the support requesting terminal, and sound output means for converting sound data input from the support requesting terminal into sound and outputting the same through the communication means. Transmitting and receiving data between the support requesting side and the support providing side via the support requesting side terminal, the support providing side terminal and the communication means,
A maintenance support system for a machine tool, wherein maintenance can be performed on a support request side based on an instruction from a support providing side.