JP2008161994A - Automatic connector insertion/removal device and connector insertion/removal method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain an automatic device for automating a work processing to insert/remove terminal devices from RF connectors of a test specimen in the test specimen having a large number of RF connectors and of shortening time required for manual work in an electrical characteristic test of RF signals. <P>SOLUTION: The automatic device is provided with an image processing device for measuring the terminal positions of the terminal devices and the RF connectors; a robot hand having a grip part for griping the terminal device and a drive part for moving the grip part in the three-dimensional direction; a measuring hand capable of moving a measuring cable to the three-dimensional direction; and a control device for controlling grip or release operation of the grip part in the robot hand and movement operations of the robot hand and the measuring hand. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an automatic insertion / extraction apparatus and a connector insertion / extraction method for automatically inserting / removing an RF (Radio Frequency) connector of a high-frequency device.

  Conventionally, in an antenna operating state, an actual delay amount of a real-time delay line is measured, and an array that can reduce a beam pointing error by correcting a difference between a setting value of the real-time delay line and an actual delay amount. An antenna measurement method is known (for example, see Patent Document 1). However, with this type of array antenna measurement method, it is not possible to directly measure the electrical characteristics (hereinafter referred to as RF characteristics) of RF signals such as passing loss and reflection loss of the transmission / reception module connected to each antenna element. The transmission / reception module includes an RF terminal connected to each antenna element, a transmission system amplification circuit, a reception system low-noise amplifier, a power distributor, a directional coupler, and the like. An RF signal is input to the RF terminal. By outputting, the RF characteristics of the transmission / reception module can be measured and the performance variation of each module can be evaluated.

JP 2002-176309 A

  On the other hand, as a method for evaluating a wireless device, power is supplied directly to the feeding point of the coaxial line of the wireless device, and the received electric field strength of the wireless device is measured to determine the difference from the power value measured in the radiation state due to antenna coupling. An example of obtaining a loss value due to antenna coupling is known (see, for example, Patent Document 2). In this type of wireless device, the coaxial line is connected to the feeding point through human hands, and the measurement is not automated.

JP 2000-39460 A

  In an RF device (specimen) including a plurality of antenna elements such as APAA (Active Phased Array Antenna) and a transmission / reception module connected to the antenna element, in each RF terminal of the transmission / reception module, RF characteristics are measured. At least two RF connectors for transmission and reception are attached to the RF terminal, and a plurality of RF connectors are arranged for each transmission / reception module in a plane connected to the antenna element surface. In this case, in order to prevent radio wave interference due to leakage from adjacent RF connectors that do not measure RF characteristics, terminators are attached to a number of RF connectors in the specimen. All terminators are attached to all RF connectors, and one terminator at the measurement point is manually pulled out from here, and the RF control is performed by manually connecting the measurement control cable to the RF connector from which the terminator has been removed. taking measurement. Further, after the measurement was completed, the measurement control cable was manually pulled out, and the terminator previously pulled out was manually inserted again. At this time, several tens to several hundreds of RF connectors are provided for one active phased array antenna, and it takes a lot of time to manually insert / remove the terminator from the RF connector compared to the measurement time. There was a problem that it took.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above problems. For example, in a specimen having a large number of RF connectors, such as an active phased array antenna having a plurality of transmission / reception modules and a large number of RF connectors, It is an object of the present invention to obtain an automatic device that automates the work process of inserting / removing the terminator from / to the RF connector and shortens the time required for manual work in the electrical characteristic test of the RF signal.

  An automatic connector insertion / extraction apparatus according to the present invention includes an image processing device that measures the terminal positions of a terminator and an RF connector, a robot hand that has a gripping unit that grips the terminator, and a drive unit that three-dimensionally moves the gripping unit, A measuring hand capable of moving the cable for three-dimensional movement, and a control device for controlling the gripping or releasing operation of the gripping part in the robot hand and the moving operation of the robot hand and the measuring hand. Move the gripping part of the robot hand to the terminal position of the terminator measured by the device, grasp the terminator, pull out the terminator and then retract, then measure to the terminal position of the RF connector measured by the image processing device The end of the terminator measured by the image processing device using the robot hand after moving the measurement hand and connecting the measurement cable to the RF connector Position is moved the saved terminator to, and performs control again to connect the terminator to the RF connector.

  The connector insertion / extraction method according to the present invention includes a step of measuring the position of the terminator based on the image of the terminator after attaching the terminator to each RF connector, and moving the robot hand to the measured position of the terminator Thereafter, the step of grasping the terminator by the robot hand and pulling out the terminator from the RF connector, the step of measuring the position of the RF connector based on the image of the RF connector from which the terminator has been pulled out, and pulling out the terminator Attaching the measurement cable to the RF connector with the measurement hand, after completing the measurement of the RF signal using the measurement cable, extracting the measurement cable from the RF connector, and extracting the measurement cable from the RF Moving the terminator to the connector position by the robot hand; The step of attaching the terminator to the RF connector terminator movement position by de, in order, is to insertion of the connector.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to automatically and continuously measure the electrical characteristics of a large number of RF connectors by automatically inserting and removing the terminator from the RF connector and automatically inserting and removing the RF signal measurement cable. There is an effect that the test time of characteristics is shortened.

Embodiment 1 FIG.
Hereinafter, an automatic connector insertion / extraction apparatus according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an automatic connector insertion / removal device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. In the figure, an automatic connector insertion / extraction apparatus is a two-stage robot hand 21 configured by using an image processing apparatus 20 that acquires positional information of an RF connector 13 and a terminator 11, and an electric actuator robot 1 and an air slider 2. And a measuring hand 22 to which the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is attached and the measuring control cable 8 can be attached and detached, and a control device 23.

  The robot hand 21 includes three fingers (terminator side fingers 4 to be described later) attached to the tips of the respective claws of the three-jaw chuck (3) to form a gripping portion 24. One of the fingers is provided with a terminator grip detection optical fiber sensor 5 and constitutes a detection sensor. The image processing apparatus 20 includes an image processing apparatus camera unit 10 and an image processing unit 25.

  The control device 23 is composed of a computer, a ROM in which a control sequence program is stored in advance, a control arithmetic processor (CPU) that executes control sequence processing and various arithmetic processing based on the program stored in the ROM, and an image processing device A memory capable of reading and writing the position information measured by the camera unit 10 is provided. The control device 23 is connected to the image processing device 20, the robot hand 21, the measurement hand 22, and the terminator grip detection optical fiber sensor 5. The control device 23 is connected to the measurement device 26. As the measuring device 26, a waveform analyzer that can freely perform measurement control and signal input / output of measurement data by a control signal from the control device 23 is used. The measuring device 26 is connected to the measurement control cable 8. The measurement control cable 8 is connected to the RF connector of the specimen 12 via the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9.

The specimen 12 is composed of a plurality of transmission / reception modules constituting an active phased array antenna. The specimen 12 includes a plurality of RF connectors provided in each transmission / reception module. In the following description, the RF connector is referred to as a measured terminal 13. The measured terminal 13 is a push-on connector type connector.
Each specimen 12 has a large number (several tens to several hundreds) of terminals to be measured 13. The specimen 12 is installed on a mounting base provided in the connector automatic insertion / extraction apparatus, and automatic measurement of RF characteristics is executed. Note that the terminators 11 are attached in advance to all the terminals to be measured 13 before the automatic measurement of the RF characteristics is executed. Further, the information on the position coordinates of all the terminals to be measured 13 is preliminarily programmed into the ROM as a position file.

  2A and 2B are three views schematically showing the detailed structure of the automatic connector insertion / extraction apparatus according to the first embodiment, wherein FIG. 2A is a plan view, FIG. 2B is a front view, FIG. 2C is a side view, and FIG. These are the partial detailed views which looked at the holding part 24 from the downward direction. In the figure, an air slider 2 is attached to a movable part of the electric actuator robot 1, and a three-claw chuck 3 is held at the tip of the air slider 2. In the electric actuator robot 1, the movable part is movable in three axial directions in a horizontal plane (X-axis direction and Y-axis direction) and a vertical direction (Z-axis direction). The air slider 2 is movable in the vertical direction (Z-axis direction) with respect to the movable portion of the electric actuator robot 1. Further, the three-jaw chuck 3 has three claws 31 whose moving directions are different at intervals of 120 ° in a horizontal plane. Each claw 31 holds a terminator side finger 4. The three terminator side fingers 4 move so as to be separated from each other or approach each other in the horizontal plane as the claws 31 move.

  Further, as described above, the terminator grip detection optical fiber sensor 5 is attached to one terminator side finger 4. The terminator grip detection optical fiber sensor 5 includes an optical fiber 27 and a detection unit 28. The detection unit 28 includes a photoelectric converter and a CPU or a logic circuit. The camera unit 10 for the image processing apparatus is held by the electric actuator robot 1 and is installed in parallel with the Z-axis moving direction of the movable portion in the electric actuator robot 1. An illumination 14 is provided below the camera unit 10 for the image processing apparatus. In the illumination 14, one or a plurality of LEDs are inclinedly arranged at two positions separated from each other so as to form a V shape. The light emitted from the two LEDs arranged in the V shape intersects with each other above the lens focal position of the image processing apparatus camera unit 10 so that the vicinity of the lens focal position becomes brighter than the surroundings. Irradiated.

  One of the three terminator-side fingers 4 is provided with a terminator grip detection optical fiber sensor 5. The distance L between the terminator-side finger 4 and the terminator relatively changes in accordance with the movement of the claw in the three-jaw chuck 3. In a state where the terminator 11 is gripped by the three terminator side fingers 4, the optical fiber 27 is held by the terminator side finger 4 so that the upper surface of the terminator terminal is located immediately below the end surface of the optical fiber 27. ing. The terminator grip detection optical fiber sensor 5 emits light from the end face of the optical fiber 27 and receives the light reflected by the object and returned by the end face of the optical fiber 27 again. The light received by the end face of the optical fiber 27 is input to the detection unit 28, and the intensity of the received light is measured to detect the presence of the object, that is, the terminator 11. For example, an optical signal input to the detection unit 28 is converted into an electric signal by photoelectric conversion. The detection unit 28 converts the electrical signal after photoelectric conversion into a voltage signal, and obtains a change in light intensity based on the magnitude of the voltage. When this voltage is equal to or higher than a predetermined threshold, the CPU or logic circuit of the detection unit 28 determines that the terminator 11 exists within a predetermined distance with respect to the terminator side finger 4, and the terminator 11 is measured. It is detected that the terminal 13 is securely connected. When this voltage is smaller than a predetermined threshold, the CPU or logic circuit of the detection unit 28 determines that the terminator 11 is located beyond a predetermined distance with respect to the terminator-side finger 4, and the grip of the terminator 11 is released. It is detected that

  The measurement hand 22 includes a measurement-side air slider 6 and a measurement-side hand 7 attached to the electric actuator robot 1. The measurement-side hand 7 is driven by the electric actuator robot 1 and moves in three axial directions (X-axis direction, Y-axis direction, Z-direction). The air slider 6 is movable in the vertical direction (Z-axis direction), and moves the measurement hand 7 in the vertical direction with respect to the electric actuator robot 1. The measurement-side hand 7 holds a measurement control cable 8, and an XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is provided at the tip of the measurement control cable 8.

  The measurement control cable 8 and the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 are held by the measurement-side hand 7 and are movable in the three-axis directions in accordance with the movement of the measurement-side hand 7. The image processing apparatus camera unit 10 is movable in two axial directions (X-axis direction and Y-axis direction) in accordance with the movement of the electric actuator robot 1, and the position coordinates of the terminator 11 and the terminal to be measured 13 in the XY plane are determined. measure. In the memory, the relative position coordinates of the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 and the three-jaw chuck 3 in the XY plane are stored in advance. Of course, it goes without saying that the relative position coordinates can be appropriately calibrated. Further, the three-dimensional position coordinates of the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 and the three-dimensional position coordinates of the three-jaw chuck 3 are moved in a three-dimensional direction by driving the air slider 6, the measurement side hand 7, and the electric actuator robot 1. A position measurement sensor (not shown) is provided so as to be measured accurately.

  The XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is fitted to the measured terminal 13, and the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is connected to the measured terminal 13. When the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is connected to the measured terminal 13, the terminators 11 are attached to all the measured terminals 13 other than the measured terminal 13 to which the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is connected. . Further, when the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is not connected to any measured terminal 13, the terminators 11 are attached to all the measured terminals 13. When the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is connected to the terminal to be measured 13, RF signals are input / output between the measuring device 26 and the specimen 12 through the measurement control cable 8. The control device 23 measures the passage characteristic and reflection characteristic of the specimen 12 through the measurement device 26.

  In this Embodiment 1, after connecting the specimen 12 which has many to-be-measured terminals 13 to a connector automatic insertion / extraction apparatus, and attaching the terminator 11 to all the to-be-measured terminals 13, a connector automatic insertion / extraction apparatus is the terminator 11. It is possible to automate the measurement without manually attaching and detaching the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9. In the conventional test method, the terminator is attached / detached or the control cable is attached / detached while the control cable is connected and held manually, so that camera shake occurs during attachment / detachment, and measurement reproducibility is reduced. In addition, the work efficiency has been remarkably poor as the terminator and control cable are manually attached and detached.

  On the other hand, in the automatic connector insertion / extraction apparatus of the first embodiment, the terminator 11 is automatically attached so that all the terminals to be measured 13 are terminated, and the measurement cable 8 is automatically attached to the terminals to be measured 13. Connect to. As a result, it is possible to automatically measure the RF characteristics of the specimen 12 having a large number (several tens to several hundreds) of terminals to be measured.

  The automatic connector insertion / extraction apparatus according to the first embodiment uses a Z-axis actuator robot 1, a measurement-side air slider 6, a measurement-side hand 7, and a camera unit 10 for an image processing apparatus. Since the terminator 11 and the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 are connected to the terminal to be measured 13 based on the position of the measurement terminal 13, high positioning accuracy can be ensured when performing repeated positioning. Therefore, there is an effect that the measurement reproducibility can be improved as compared with the case where the positioning is performed manually.

In general, the inner diameter of the terminator 11 is eccentric with respect to the outer diameter of the terminator 11. For this reason, when the terminator 11 is fitted to the outer diameter of the terminal 13 to be measured, the center axis of the outer diameter of the terminator 11 is displaced relative to the center axis of the outer diameter of the terminal 13 to be measured. When the terminator 11 is fitted to the terminal to be measured 13, the terminator 11 does not fit well due to this misalignment, and in some cases, the RF characteristics may change.
In the automatic connector insertion / extraction apparatus of the first embodiment, the outer diameter of the terminator terminal and the outer diameter of the terminal terminal to be measured are individually measured using the camera unit 10 for the image processing apparatus, and the positional deviation between them is corrected. As a result, there is an effect of preventing a fitting failure and a change in RF characteristics due to the positional deviation of the outer diameters of the measured terminal 13 and the terminator 11.

If the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is removed from the measurement-side hand 7 when the measurement control cable 8 is removed, the image processing apparatus camera unit 10 and the three-jaw chuck 3 and the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 are connected. The relative positional relationship will shift. When the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is attached and removed, teaching work for teaching coordinates to the actuator robot and rewriting work of program control of the position file are required. The time required for rewriting the teaching work and the program control of the position file is extremely large.
In the automatic connector insertion / extraction apparatus of the first embodiment, when the zero point calibration of the once / day measuring device 26 is performed, the work of removing the measurement control cable 8 from the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is facilitated. In addition, the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 and the measurement control cable 8 are connected by a connector, and a work space for manual attachment and removal work is provided around the connector, whereby the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is connected to the measurement-side hand. 7 so that the measurement control cable 8 can be removed while being attached to the cable 7. That is, the teaching work is simplified by determining the arrangement shape of the measurement-side hand 7 so that the measurement control cable 8 can be easily detached from the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9.

  FIG. 3 shows the processing operation of the control device 23 in the case of performing the connecting operation of the terminator 11 and the measurement control cable 8 by using the automatic connector insertion / extraction device configured as shown in FIGS. It is a flowchart which shows an example. 4 and 5 are diagrams showing the transition of the operation state in the automatic connector insertion / extraction apparatus. FIG. 4A is a diagram illustrating a state in which the terminal position of the terminator 11 of the terminal 13 to be measured is measured by the image processing device camera unit 10. FIG. 4B is a diagram showing a state in which the three terminator side fingers 4 constituting the gripping part 24 have pulled out the terminator 11 from the terminal to be measured 13. FIG. 5A is a diagram showing a state in which the terminal position of the terminal to be measured 13 is being measured by the camera unit for image processing apparatus 10, and FIG. 5B is a diagram illustrating the XPI-SMA applied to the terminal to be measured 13 by the measuring hand 7. It is a figure which shows the state which has connected the conversion adapter. Here, a case where the RF characteristics of the specimen 12 are measured in the automatic connector insertion / extraction apparatus will be described as an example.

  First, the terminators 11 are attached to all the terminals to be measured 13 of the specimen 12 in advance by manual work (step S1). In this case, in order to make work more efficient, some jigs and tools may be used to attach all the terminators 11 to all the terminals to be measured 13 at once.

  Next, as shown in FIG. 4A, in order to remove the terminator 11 of the terminal 13 to be measured, the electric actuator robot 1 is first moved in the horizontal direction (XY in-plane direction), and the camera unit for the image processing apparatus. 10 cameras are moved above the terminator 11 connected to the terminal 13 to be measured. The illumination 14 illuminates the upper surface of the terminator 11. The terminals to be measured 13 are two-dimensionally arranged in the horizontal plane. For example, the control device 23 sets I = 1 to N for the (I, J) -th measured terminal 13 (1 ≦ I ≦ N, 1 ≦ J ≦ M, where N is a positive integer equal to or greater than 2). Automatic measurement of RF characteristics is sequentially executed from J = 1 to M. The location and order of the terminal 13 to be measured from which the terminator 11 is pulled out are defined in advance in the control sequence program of the control device 23.

  The camera unit for image processing apparatus 10 that has moved above the terminator 11 sends a captured camera image signal to the image processing unit 25. When recognizing the outer shape of the terminator 11 based on the camera image, the image processing unit 25 detects the center position of the outer shape of the terminator 11 and measures the position coordinates (step S2). The measured position coordinates correspond to the terminal position of the terminator 11, and the position coordinates of the detected center position are transmitted to the control device 23. The outer shape recognition of the terminator 11 is performed, for example, by pattern matching with a preset pattern image.

  At this time, if the position coordinate of the detected center position is displaced with respect to the position data previously input as a position file by the program, the CPU of the control device 23 calculates the amount of displacement and the actuator robot 1 Is moved in the horizontal plane (in the XY plane) to apply position correction. The corrected position coordinates are temporarily stored in the memory of the control device 23 as the terminal position of the terminator 11.

  Next, in order to actually remove the terminator 11, the electric actuator robot 1 is moved by a predetermined amount, and the three-jaw chuck 3 is moved above the central axis at the terminal of the terminator 11. This predetermined movement amount is set based on the relative position coordinates of the image processing apparatus camera unit 10 and the three-jaw chuck 3 stored in the memory of the control device 23 in advance.

  In this position state, the control device 23 positions the electric actuator robot 1 and the terminator side air cylinder 2 with high accuracy in the Z-axis direction, and lowers the three-jaw chuck 3 by a predetermined amount. At this time, first, the terminator-side air cylinder 2 is moved in the Z-axis direction, and the three-jaw chuck 3 is moved with a rough positioning accuracy to a predetermined position Z1 set in advance. Subsequently, the electric actuator robot 1 is moved in the Z-axis direction, and the three-jaw chuck 3 is moved with high positioning accuracy to a predetermined position Z2. In this way, the three-jaw chuck 3 is moved to a position where the three terminator side fingers 4 can grip the terminator 11. Since the terminator-side air cylinder 2 is used, the moving speed in the Z-axis direction can be increased. In addition, since the electric actuator robot 1 is used, the positioning accuracy in the Z-axis direction can be increased. .

  Subsequently, the control device 23 moves the three-jaw chuck 3 and moves so that the three terminator side fingers 4 attached thereto move closer to each other in the horizontal plane, and as shown in FIG. The terminator side fingers 4 hold the terminator 11 (step S3).

  At this time, it is determined whether or not the terminator 11 is within a predetermined distance from the terminator side finger 4 by using the optical fiber sensor 5 for detecting the terminator grip included in one of the three terminator side fingers 4. By measuring this, it is detected that the gripped terminator 11 is securely gripped (step S4).

  While holding the terminator 11, the three-jaw chuck 3 and the three terminator side fingers 4 attached thereto are raised by a predetermined amount by the electric actuator robot 1 and the terminator side air cylinder 2. As a result, the terminator 11 is pulled out from the terminal to be measured 13 and retracted from the periphery of the terminal to be measured 13 (step S5).

  At this time, the terminator side air cylinder 2 is first moved in the Z-axis direction, and then the electric actuator robot 1 is driven in the Z-axis direction to move the three-jaw chuck 3 to a predetermined position set in advance. Also here, since the terminator side air cylinder 2 and the electric actuator robot 1 are used, it is possible to increase the moving speed in the Z-axis direction and to obtain high positioning accuracy.

  Next, in order to insert the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 into the measured terminal 13, the electric actuator robot 1 is moved as shown in FIG. 5A, and the camera unit 10 for the image processing apparatus is moved above the measured terminal 13. Move to.

  The camera unit for image processing apparatus 10 that has moved above the terminal to be measured 13 sends a signal of the captured camera image to the image processing unit 25. The image processor 25 recognizes the outer shape of the terminal 13 to be measured, detects the center position, and transmits the detected center position to the control device 23.

  At this time, when the center position of the terminal 13 to be measured detected by the image processing unit 25 is displaced with respect to the position data previously input as a position file by the program, the CPU of the control device 23 uses this displacement amount. Calculation is performed, and the actuator robot 1 is moved in the horizontal plane (in the XY plane) to apply position correction (step S6). The corrected position coordinates are temporarily stored in the memory of the control device 23 as the terminal position of the terminal 13 to be measured.

  Next, in order to insert the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 into the terminal 13 to be measured, the control device 23 moves the electric actuator robot 1 by a predetermined amount in the horizontal plane (in the XY plane), so that the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is attached. The measurement terminal 13 is moved above the central axis at the terminal. The predetermined movement amount is set based on the relative position coordinates between the image processing apparatus camera unit 10 and the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 stored in the memory of the control device 23 in advance. The XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is held and fixed to the measurement-side hand 7 as described above.

  Next, the control device 23 lowers the electric actuator robot 1 and the measurement-side air cylinder 6 by a predetermined amount, positions the tip of the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 with high accuracy, and inserts it into the measured terminal 13 (step S7). . At this time, the measurement side air cylinder 6 is first moved to move the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 in the Z-axis direction at a high speed, and then the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is moved to the Z-axis with high accuracy by the electric actuator robot 1. Move in the direction.

  The control device 23 performs automatic measurement of RF characteristics using a measurement device connected to the measurement control cable 8 via the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 (step S8).

  After completion of the automatic measurement, the control device 23 raises the electric actuator robot 1 and the measurement side air cylinder 6 by a predetermined amount, and removes the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 (step S9). At this time, the electric actuator robot 1 is first moved to move the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 in the Z-axis direction with high accuracy, and then the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is moved to the Z-axis at a high speed by the measurement side air cylinder 6. Move in the direction (step S10).

  Next, in order to attach the held terminator 11, the control device 23 moves the electric actuator robot 1 by a predetermined amount, and moves the three-jaw chuck 3 on the center line of the terminal of the terminal 13 to be measured.

  The controller 23 lowers the electric actuator robot 1 and the terminator-side air cylinder 2 by a predetermined amount to position the tip of the terminator 11 with high accuracy, and the terminator 11 is measured as shown in FIG. The terminal 13 is inserted (step S11). At this time, the measurement side air cylinder 6 is first moved to move the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 in the Z-axis direction at a high speed, and then the XPI-SMA conversion adapter 9 is moved to the Z-axis with high accuracy by the electric actuator robot 1. Move in the direction.

  Subsequently, the control device 23 opens the three terminator side fingers 4 of the three-jaw chuck 3 to release the gripped terminator 11.

  Of the three terminator-side fingers 4, one of the terminator gripping detection optical fiber sensors 5 is used to detect whether the gripped terminator 11 has been released reliably.

  Further, the control device 23 raises the three-jaw chuck 3 and the three terminator side fingers 4 attached thereto by a predetermined amount by the electric actuator robot 1 and the terminator side air cylinder 2.

  When there are a plurality of terminals to be measured 13, the image processing apparatus camera unit 10 is moved above the terminals to be measured 13 to be automatically measured next. And it returns to step S2 again from step S11, and repeats the said operation about all the to-be-measured terminals 13 which want to measure automatically.

The above processing flow will be briefly described and comprises the following steps (1) to (7). By repeatedly repeating these steps (1) to (7), the insertion and removal of the RF connector and the RF characteristic measurement are automatically executed continuously.
(1) A step of measuring the position of the terminator based on the image of the terminator after attaching the terminator to each RF connector.
(2) A step of moving the robot hand to the measured position of the terminator, holding the terminator by the robot hand, and pulling out the terminator from the RF connector.
(3) A step of measuring the position of the RF connector based on the image of the RF connector from which the terminator is pulled out.
(4) A step of attaching a measurement cable to the RF connector from which the terminator has been pulled out by a measurement hand.
(5) A step of pulling out the measurement cable from the RF connector after the measurement of the RF signal using the measurement cable is completed.
(6) A step of moving the terminator by the robot hand to the position of the RF connector from which the measurement cable is pulled out.
(7) A step of attaching the terminator to the RF connector at the position where the terminator is moved by the robot hand.

  As described above, according to the present invention, the position information of the terminator connected to the RF connector is acquired by using the image processing device under the program control of the control device. In addition, the terminator is automatically attached and removed using a two-stage robot hand that uses both an electric actuator robot and an air slider. Further, the position information of the RF connector is acquired by using the image processing apparatus, and the measurement cable is automatically connected to the RF connector by using the measurement hand using both the electric actuator robot and the air slider. Accordingly, it is possible to automatically and continuously measure the RF characteristics of a large number of narrow pitch RF connectors while maintaining the electrical characteristics.

It is a figure which shows the structure of the connector automatic insertion / extraction apparatus by Embodiment 1 of this invention. It is a figure which shows the structure of the connector automatic insertion / extraction apparatus by Embodiment 1 of this invention. It is a figure which shows the processing flow of a control apparatus in the connector automatic insertion / extraction apparatus by Embodiment 1 of this invention. It is a figure which shows the connector extraction operation | movement of the connector automatic insertion / extraction apparatus by Embodiment 1 of this invention. It is a figure which shows the connection operation of the cable for a measurement of the connector automatic insertion / extraction apparatus by Embodiment 1 of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Electric actuator robot, 2 Terminator side air slider, 3 Tri-claw chuck, 4 Terminator side finger, 5 Terminator grip detection optical fiber sensor, 6 Measurement side air slider, 7 Measurement hand, 8 Measurement control cable, 9 XPI-SMA conversion adapter, 10 Image processing device camera unit (camera), 11 Terminator, 12 Specimen, 13 Device to be measured (RF connector), 20 Image processing device, 23 Control device (computer), 26 Measuring device .

Claims (6)

An image processing apparatus for measuring terminal positions of the terminator and the RF connector;
A robot hand having a gripping part for gripping the terminator and a driving part for moving the gripping part in a three-dimensional direction;
A measuring hand capable of moving the measuring cable in a three-dimensional direction;
A control device for controlling the gripping or releasing operation of the gripping part in the robot hand, and the moving operation of the robot hand and the measuring hand;
With
The control device moves the gripping part of the robot hand to the terminal position of the terminator measured by the image processing device, grips the terminator, pulls out the terminator and then retreats.
After moving the measurement hand to the terminal position of the RF connector measured by the image processing apparatus and connecting the measurement cable to the RF connector,
Using the robot hand, move the terminator retracted to the terminal position of the terminator measured by the image processing apparatus, and perform control to connect the terminator to the RF connector again.
A connector automatic insertion / extraction device characterized by that. A detection sensor for detecting a state in which the terminator is gripped by the gripping unit;
The detection sensor has an optical fiber attached to the gripping part and a detection part that inputs and outputs an optical signal through the optical fiber, and detects whether the terminator is gripped based on the amount of light detected by the detection part. The automatic connector insertion / extraction apparatus according to claim 1, wherein: The gripping part has at least a three-jaw chuck for gripping or releasing the terminal part by moving so as to approach or separate from each other;
3. The automatic connector insertion / extraction apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the detection sensor is attached to at least one claw in the grip portion, and a distance from the terminator is relatively changed according to movement of the claw. . The control device has a memory and a calculation unit,
The image processing apparatus includes a camera unit and a signal processing unit,
The signal processing unit obtains the terminal center position of the RF connector and the terminal center position of the terminator attached to the RF connector based on the captured image of the camera unit, and is attached to the terminal center position of the RF connector and the RF connector in the memory. Stores the terminal center position of the terminator,
The arithmetic unit aligns the terminator with the RF connector based on the amount of positional deviation between the terminal center position of the terminator and the terminal center position of the RF connector obtained by the signal processing unit.
The connector automatic insertion / extraction apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein The driving part of the robot hand includes an air slider and an electric actuator,
The connector according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the control device causes the terminator to be inserted into and removed from the RF connector using an electric actuator after the gripper is moved up and down using an air slider. Automatic insertion / extraction device. Measuring the position of the terminator based on the image of the terminator after attaching the terminator to each RF connector;
After moving the robot hand to the measured position of the terminator, gripping the terminator with the robot hand and pulling out the terminator from the RF connector;
Measuring the position of the RF connector based on the image of the RF connector with the terminator pulled out;
Attaching a measurement cable to the RF connector from which the terminator has been pulled out by a measurement hand;
After the measurement of the RF signal using the measurement cable is completed, the step of pulling the measurement cable from the RF connector;
Moving the terminator by the robot hand to the position of the RF connector from which the measurement cable is pulled out;
Attaching the terminator to the RF connector at the terminator movement position by the robot hand;
Connector insertion / extraction method for inserting / removing connectors in this order.

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