JP2008200764A - Manipulator for working - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a manipulator for working, which enables atypical work or quantitative work to be done while achieving simple mounting, and favorable environmental resistance, reliability, and affinity to humans. <P>SOLUTION: The manipulator for working is provided with: a movable item such as a robot comprising a movable part and a control part; and a manipulator part comprising a contact sensor attached to the movable item to detect a contact state with a subject of working, and a force sensor to detect contact force when in contact. The control part is provided with: a means to acquire a working state based on the contact state detected by the contact sensor or the contact force detected by the force sensor; and a means to interpret pattern information having artificial regularity detected by the contact sensor or the force sensor as a command. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a work manipulator, and is particularly suitable for a work manipulator comprising a link mechanism attached to a moving body such as a mobile robot and having a plurality of joints and mainly including a manipulator section for the purpose of contact work. .

  As an example of a manipulator control device for the purpose of contact work, for example, there is a control device and control method for a legged mobile robot disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-205290 (Patent Document 1). Here, it is a robot equipped with a plurality of input devices such as images, sounds, contacts, and pressure-sensing, and using part or all of the movements of the components of the aircraft, such as the head, arms, lower limbs, and trunk , A robot control apparatus that appropriately obtains external factors for use in action determination by intentionally changing information input from a visual sensor, a microphone, a switch, a pressure sensor, etc. It is shown.

JP 2002-205290 A

  Conventional industrial robots basically have no restrictions on the supply of driving energy and the size and weight of the control device. In comparison, mobile bodies such as mobile robots need to incorporate energy supply sources and control devices. Therefore, unnecessary devices are not added as much as possible, and mounting is simplified as much as possible, and weight and shape dimensions are appropriate. It is necessary to plan. Simplification of the mounting is an important design issue in a robot that takes an operation form with a high risk of failure to move and work from the viewpoint of improving hardware reliability.

  Among mobile work robots, especially humanoid robots that have been developed recently, symbiosis with humans or coexistence of space-time is a premise, and therefore the familiarity brought about by the appearance is more important than conventional robots. The tendency is high. For the same reason, it is desirable to use a method performed by humans, that is, a natural language or a body language, as an interface means, not via a control box in an industrial robot.

  As a result, mobile work robots that imitate people often tend to omit the command interface hardware such as the control box as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-228561. This means that robots are extremely autonomous and do not require any instruction commands at the work site, so that a concrete / quantitative unit-level action plan can be generated by abstract instructions in speech language etc. It doesn't matter if you have advanced intelligence. However, in practice, work in an environment where humans are present is often atypical, that is, often cannot be planned in advance, and often requires instructions with a certain degree of fineness and quantitativeness. Further, depending on the environment, there are cases where communication means such as voice cannot be used due to noise or the like. For this reason, until now, it has been impossible to give clear instructions to such robots unless an external device for command input is prepared. On the other hand, if the autonomy is increased, the behavior derived from the behavior principle and the environmental information becomes complicated, and it tends to be difficult to order a task having a specific purpose.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a work manipulator that is simple in mounting and has good environmental resistance, reliability, and interpersonal compatibility, and can perform atypical work and quantitative work.

  In order to achieve the above-described object, the present invention provides a moving body such as a robot having a moving unit and a control unit, a contact sensor attached to the moving body and detecting a contact state with a work object, and a contact at the time of contact. A manipulator unit having a force sensor for detecting force, and the control unit includes a contact state detected by the contact sensor or means for grasping a work state based on the contact force detected by the force sensor In the manipulator for operation, the control unit includes means for interpreting pattern information having artificial regularity detected by the contact sensor or the force sensor as a command.

A preferred specific configuration example of the present invention is as follows.
(1) The pattern information interpreted by the control unit is a unit of on / off time detected by the contact sensor, which is distinguished by the length, and a combination of one or more of them as an information unit at the time of command. To do.
(2) The pattern information interpreted by the control unit is distinguished by at least one of the intensity, direction, and duration detected by the force sensor, and a command obtained by combining one or more of them as a segment. It should be an information unit of time.
(3) The pattern information interpreted by the control unit includes on / off times that are distinguished by the length detected by the contact sensor as a segment, and an information unit obtained by combining one or more of these, and the force sensor. A combination of at least one of the detected intensity, direction, and duration, and an information unit obtained by combining one or more of them as a segment, is used as an information unit at the time of command.
(4) In the above (1), the control unit includes a switching means between a means for grasping the working state and a means for interpreting the pattern information as a command, and the switching means is an on / off function constituting the information unit. Switching using a unit with an on / off time longer than the unit of time.
(5) In the above (2), the control unit includes a switching unit between a unit for grasping the work state and a unit for interpreting the pattern information as a command, and the switching unit is an element of intensity constituting the information unit. It must be switched using a segment larger than the segment.

  According to the work manipulator of the present invention, it is possible to perform atypical work and work with quantitativeness while being simple in mounting and having good environmental resistance, reliability, and human compatibility.

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

  FIG. 1 shows a configuration of a working manipulator according to the present invention. In FIG. 1, 101 is a manipulator unit, 102 is a work hand, 103 is a contact sensor, 104 is a force sensor, 105 is a joint limit sensor, 106 is an operator, 107 is a mobile robot, 108 is a mobile robot head, 109 is Mobile robot body, 110 is a mobile robot traveling unit, 111 is a control unit, 112 is a drive energy supply unit, 113 is manipulator control information and control input transmission path, 114 is mobile robot head control information and control input transmission path, and 115 is Mobile robot traveling unit control information and control input transmission path 116 indicates a drive energy supply path. The manipulator shown in FIG. 1 schematically represents a typical configuration of a humanoid robot with links and joints, but the following contents are not limited to the configuration of degrees of freedom shown here. .

  In FIG. 1, only one manipulator unit 101 and work hand 102 are illustrated, but two or more of these may be provided. Actually, a mobile work robot imitating a person is usually equipped with two arm-like manipulator units in consideration of work performance improvement and human compatibility. The joint limit sensor 105 is provided at the upper and lower limit positions of all the joints, but only one location is shown here. Although not shown, each joint is assumed to be equipped with a sensor such as an encoder for detecting the joint angle and an actuator for driving the joint.

  The mobile robot 107 has a head 108, and the head is supported by a pan-tilt 2-degree-of-freedom or roll-pitch-yaw 3-degree-of-freedom joint, and each joint of the manipulator unit 101 has a similar function. It shall be equipped with limit sensor, angle sensor and actuator. The mobile robot traveling unit 110 in the drawing is depicted as a moving mechanism by rotating two wheels, but this may be any number of wheels, and may be a moving means other than a tire, such as a leg mechanism. The driving energy supply unit 112 may be anything such as a primary battery, a secondary battery, a fuel cell, an internal combustion engine, an external combustion engine, or the like that can supply power to the control unit 111 by power generation or discharge. In the manipulator control information and control input transmission path 113, contact sensor information and force sensor information flow toward the control unit 111 in addition to angle information, limit sensor information, and opening information of the hand 102 from each joint of the manipulator. From, the actuator control input is transmitted toward each joint motor. Similarly, angle sensor information, limit sensor information, and actuator control input are transmitted to the mobile robot head control information and the control input transmission path 114. In the case of a wheel moving mechanism, angle sensor information and actuator control input are transmitted to the mobile robot traveling unit control information and control input transmission path 115. In the case of a leg mechanism, the same information and control input as the manipulator unit are transmitted.

  In the normal case, the contact sensor 103 and the force sensor 104 of the manipulator unit 101 are, for example, as shown in FIG. 2, (a) turning the door knob 701, (b) pushing the button 702, (c) the object 703. This is used for detecting work information (external world information) when gripping an object. That is, the control unit 111 includes means (function) for grasping the work state based on the contact state detected by the contact sensor 103 and the contact force detected by the force sensor 104.

  Then, by switching the state of the contact sensor 103 and the force sensor 104 of the manipulator unit 101 according to the procedure shown in FIG. 3, it becomes possible to detect command information in addition to detection of normal work information. . In other words, the control unit 111 interprets the pattern information having artificial regularity detected by the contact sensor 103 and the force sensor 104 as a command (function), as a command for understanding the working state, and the pattern information as a command. Switching means (function) with means for interpretation.

  The operation procedure will be described next. First, in order to show that the operator 106 will input a command from now on, an artificial time-series pattern (input start pattern) that cannot occur naturally is set to the contact sensor 102, the force sensor 103, and other various types. Input to the sensor (step 301). The controller 111 recognizes this and waits for subsequent sensor input (step 302).

  A timeout is provided when waiting for input. That is, after the start of input is recognized, the input is waited. When there is no input for a certain time (step 303, step 304), the command input is interrupted (step 305), and the control unit 111 returns to the normal state.

  When there is an input, the operator 106 continues to input a regular pattern. The control unit 111 interprets these patterns as commands (step 306). If a meaningless pattern that does not correspond to the command is input (step 307), the control unit 111 interrupts the input (step 308) and returns to the normal state. When the input end pattern is input, the process ends (step 309). If meaningful information is input as a command, the command is executed (step 310). When a certain time has elapsed after the execution of the command (step 311), the control unit 111 determines that the input has ended and returns to the normal state (step 312). Otherwise, return to step 301.

  Next, an example in which the above procedure is most simply implemented by the contact sensor 103 will be described with reference to FIG. The rectangular wave graph in FIG. 4A shows on / off of the contact sensor. The vertical axis of the graph in FIG. 4B represents the opening degree of the work hand 102. The horizontal axis is time, and the positions associated with broken lines are the same time.

  First, as shown in FIG. 4A, the touch sensor 103 is pressed for tb seconds as a pattern indicating the start of command input. When tbm ≦ tb ≦ tbM, it is recognized as a start pattern. Normally, when tbm = 5 [s] and tbM = 10 [s] are taken, it is not difficult for a person who does not have time measuring means to press the contact sensor 103 by the length between them.

  Here, assuming that the length until timeout is to, all of tg1 to tg3 in the figure are shorter than to. First, after elapse of tg1 [s], the contact sensor 103 is pushed by tl [s]. This tl is a command for changing the hand opening by Δθhl when tlm ≦ tl ≦ tlM. Next, when the contact sensor 103 is pushed again by tl [s] after an interval of tg2 [s], the hand opening degree further changes by Δθhl. Thereafter, an interval is set by tg3 [s], and this time the touch sensor 103 is pushed by ts [s]. It is assumed that ts is a command for changing the hand opening by Δθhs when tsm ≦ ts ≦ tsM. At this time, the opening degree of the hand changes as shown in the graph below. Here, if tlm = 1 [s], tlM = 2 [s], tsm = 0.1 [s], and tsM = 0.3 [s] are set, it is relatively difficult to keep tl and ts in between. Easy. Even if the input is not successful and the hand opening does not change, you can retry immediately.

  When it is desired to return to the normal mode, the touch sensor 103 is pressed and held for te [s]. te may be set to the same level as tb. Note that a method of showing a reaction such as causing each joint of the head 108 to perform a predetermined movement method at each step can be considered as to whether the input is successful. For example, if command input is successful and a meaningful interpretation is established, the head can be swung vertically, and if interrupted due to input failure, etc., the head can be swung horizontally. If a plurality of contact sensors 103 are provided, the input pattern may be increased by combining ON / OFF for each sensor.

  When the input device is only the contact sensor 103, the time series of on / off is interpreted. However, when the force / torque magnitude and direction obtained from the force sensor are combined into the interpretation material, it is multi-stage / multi- Since dimensions can be input, a large amount of complicated information can be input at the same time.

  The simplest example will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 5 shows a time series of the magnitude of the force detected by the force sensor 104. The magnitude may be the resultant force in all directions, or the magnitude of the force in a certain direction. When noise or chattering is mixed in the force sensor output, a filter is passed in advance. The time delay due to filtering is not a problem as long as all data is totally delayed. In addition, waveform rounding does not pose any problem if a later-described timeout time, pattern gap time, and inter-element time are appropriately set according to the filter characteristics.

  First, a force having a value larger than a certain fixed value Fd is applied as an input start pattern. At this time, since the duration does not matter, there is no need for the operator to worry about this as in the case of mounting by the contact sensor 103 described above. Although the timeout time to after the start of input is set, there is no other time limit. After the start pattern is input, input is performed in stages with the magnitude of the force, and this is interpreted. In FIG. 5, the magnitude of the force is divided into three stages: (1) larger than Fd, (2) between Fs and Fd, and (3) smaller than Fs. The case (1) is used for the input start / end pattern. In (2) and (3) above, the magnitude of the force is replaced with the length of the duration.

  As a result, it can be handled in the same manner as the input by the contact sensor 103 described above, but a piece of information pattern (a minimum unit of meaningful information formed from several long and short pieces) is formed when it is inputted (see FIG. In FIG. 5, it is possible to make the input by the operator easier by not having to be aware of the management of time (for example, teg 1 and teg 2 in FIG. 5). That is, teg1 and teg2 need only be small enough to be distinguished from the time lapse tg1 indicating the pattern gap. In this case, it is only necessary to be aware of the time passages tg1 and tg2 indicating the gap between the patterns. However, this is not strict and may be a value that is longer than the inter-element time teg1 and teg2 but small enough to be distinguished from the timeout time to. In other words, if to is kept long to some extent, tgn and tegn (n = 1...) Can be made sufficiently long for human time sense. Also, the magnitude of the force can be easily input regardless of the number of steps. In the case of FIG. 5, there are three stages. If these are assigned to large, medium and small, strict force management is not necessary, and if the thresholds Fd and Fs are set appropriately, human force sense can be used sufficiently. . This input method is similar to existing communication codes such as Morse code, but Morse code defines the unit width in terms of time. However, it is possible to increase the number of input patterns per unit time as compared with Morse code.

  This input method, like Morse code communication, can input several tens of information patterns per minute if it gets used to, but the operator is not necessarily familiar with such an input method. In that case, it is better to use an input assist tool.

  A simple example of an auxiliary tool is shown in FIG. In FIG. 6, 601 is an auxiliary tool, 602 is a protrusion for inputting a start pattern, 603 to 605 are protrusion groups for inputting an information pattern, and 606 is a protrusion for inputting an end pattern. 6A is a view seen from above, and FIG. 6B is a view seen from the side.

  When an operator inputs an information pattern as a command, the operator slides the auxiliary tool 601 against the tip of the manipulator unit 101 that is servo-stopped at a fixed position as shown in FIG. As a result, the force sensor 104 can be input in the above pattern. At this time, the time required for the slide and the speed fluctuation in the middle are not a problem as long as they are detected by the above principle. Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 8, it may be possible to arrange the auxiliary tool 601 in an environment such as a door, a wall, a desk, or a chair 801. The auxiliary tool 601 is exchangeable. As a premise, when this auxiliary tool 601 is attached to a predetermined position of a target object in the environment and the mobile robot recognizes this with a sensor that is separately equipped with a map, by tracing that fixed position, An operation for the object can be described. That is, the physical and geometric characteristics of various objects in the environment are recorded, and when the robot moves, it is detected and collated with the recorded characteristics. It is possible to omit processing such as identifying the user and executing a corresponding operation procedure.

  As is clear from the example described above, a sensor for detecting a contact state or an external force, which is usually used for controlling the operation of the manipulator unit, can be used for inputting operator command information.

  According to the present embodiment, a force sensor, which is normally equipped as a standard for quantitatively detecting the state of mechanical interaction with the environment (work target such as an object or structure) in motion control. A quantitative command or a literal command can be input through a contact sensor or the like. In addition, in an autonomous mobile work robot that imitates a person, it is possible to omit the command interface on the machine body, so that the environment resistance, reliability, and interpersonal affinity can be improved.

It is a block diagram of the work manipulator which concerns on one Example of this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of the operation | work performed using the force sensor and contact sensor of the manipulator part of FIG. It is a figure which shows the flow of a command input process in the manipulator part of FIG. It is operation | movement explanatory drawing of the example using the contact sensor in the manipulator part of FIG. It is operation | movement explanatory drawing of the example using the force sensor in the manipulator part of FIG. It is a figure which shows the example of the input auxiliary tool used for the manipulator part of FIG. It is a figure explaining an example of the input method using the input auxiliary tool of FIG. It is a figure explaining the other example of the input method using the input auxiliary tool of FIG.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 101 ... Manipulator part, 102 ... Working hand, 103 ... Contact sensor, 104 ... Force sensor, 105 ... Joint limit sensor, 106 ... Operator, 107 ... Mobile robot, 108 ... Mobile robot head, 109 ... Mobile robot body, DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 110 ... Mobile robot travel part, 111 ... Control part, 112 ... Drive energy supply part, 113 ... Manipulator control information and control input transmission path, 114 ... Mobile robot head control information and control input transmission path, 115 ... Mobile robot travel part Control information and control input transmission path 116: Driving energy supply path 601 ... Auxiliary tool 602 ... Projection for inputting start pattern, 603 to 605 ... Projection group for inputting information pattern, 606 ... End pattern Protrusions for input.

Claims (6)

A moving body such as a robot having a moving unit and a control unit;
A contact sensor that is attached to the moving body and that detects a contact state with a work object and a force sensor that detects a contact force at the time of contact, and a manipulator unit including a link mechanism having a plurality of joints;
In the work manipulator provided with means for grasping the work state based on the contact state detected by the contact sensor or the contact force detected by the force sensor,
The control unit includes means for interpreting pattern information having artificial regularity detected by the contact sensor or the force sensor as a command;
Work manipulator characterized by   2. The pattern information interpreted by the control unit according to claim 1, wherein on / off time distinguished by length and shortness detected by the contact sensor is used as a segment, and a combination of one or more of these pieces is information at the time of command. A work manipulator characterized by being a unit.   2. The pattern information interpreted by the control unit according to claim 1, wherein the pattern information is distinguished by at least one of intensity, direction, and duration detected by the force sensor, and one or more of them are combined as a segment. A work manipulator characterized in that is used as an information unit at the time of instruction.   The pattern information interpreted by the control unit according to claim 1, wherein the pattern information interpreted by the contact sensor includes on / off times distinguished by lengths and shorts as segments, and an information unit obtained by combining one or more of these, and the force It is distinguished by at least one of intensity, direction, and duration detected by a sensor, and a combination of one or more information units as a unit and a combination as an information unit at the time of command, Work manipulator.   3. The control unit according to claim 2, further comprising a switching means between a means for grasping the work state and a means for interpreting the pattern information as a command, wherein the switching means is an on / off time element constituting the information unit. A work manipulator characterized by being switched using a segment having a longer on / off time.   4. The control unit according to claim 3, further comprising a switching unit between a unit for grasping the work state and a unit for interpreting the pattern information as a command, wherein the switching unit is larger than a unit of strength constituting the information unit. A work manipulator characterized by being switched using a piece.

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