JP2681722B2 - Directional filling device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a directional article filling apparatus capable of aligning directional articles such as an oblong shape in a container in a predetermined direction.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Japanese Patent Publication No. 60-2825 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 63-2825 are known as prior arts for aligning the direction of horizontally long items such as fried shrimp, fried fish, sausage and chikuwa.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 56246 discloses a technique for identifying the head and tail of a fish body and aligning them in a certain direction.

However, even if the heads and tails of fish bodies are aligned, filling the containers in a predetermined direction is performed manually, and the mechanization / automation is not sufficient. .

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a directional article filling device capable of filling directional articles in a container in a predetermined direction.

[0005]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The gist of the present invention for achieving the above-mentioned object is (a) a feeding feeder for sequentially feeding out directional articles individually, and (b) feeding in various directions. An image pickup means for picking up the article, (c) an angle identifying means for identifying an angle in the longitudinal direction of the article by image-processing the image picked up by the image pickup means, (d) identified by the angle identifying means First storage means for storing an angle in the longitudinal direction of the article, (e) a conveyor for transporting the container, (f) a longitudinal direction of the article when the article on the conveyor is aligned and filled with the article in a predetermined direction. Second storage means for storing an angle, (g) means for calculating an angle difference between the longitudinal angle stored in the first storage means and the longitudinal angle stored in the second storage means, (h ) Calculated by the means for calculating the angle difference Third storage means for storing an angle difference, (i) a robot for gripping and transferring the supplied article, (j) a robot for gripping the article based on the angle difference stored in the third storage means Is a means for controlling the angle of the hand, and a device for filling a directional article.

[0006]

The horizontally long articles fed out by the supply feeder are picked up by the image pickup means. Next, the angle of the specific direction of the article is identified by the means for identifying the angle of the specific direction of the directional article by subjecting the captured image to image processing, and the angle is stored in the first storage means. Then, between the angle of the specific direction stored in the first storage means and the angle of the specific direction of the article when the containers on the conveyor stored in the second storage means are aligned and filled with the article in the predetermined direction. The angle difference is calculated by the calculation means, and the obtained angle difference is stored in the third storage means. Next, while gripping the specific article by the handle of the robot, the angle of the robot hand that grips the article is controlled based on the angle difference stored in the third storage means, and then the hand pointing in a predetermined direction is used. The above-mentioned article is filled in a predetermined portion of the container in a predetermined direction.

[0007]

1 is a plan view schematically showing a directional article filling apparatus according to the present invention. In FIG. 1, the filling device 1
Has a straight feeder 20 for feeding a horizontally long article. A ball feeder 21 for temporarily retaining a horizontally long article is provided below the end of the straight advance feeder 20 on the traveling direction side. Thereby, horizontally long articles can be individually supplied. At the end of the ball feeder 21 on the advancing direction side, an article conveying conveyer 23 is continuously provided.

A transmissive optical sensor 24 including a light emitting element 24a and a light receiving element (not shown) is provided in the middle of the conveying path of the article conveying conveyor 23. When the horizontally long article reaches the position of the transmissive optical sensor 24, it is detected by the transmissive optical sensor 24, and the linear feeder 20, the ball feeder 21, and the article transporting conveyor 23 are controlled to stop.

An image processing device 25 is disposed above the transmissive optical sensor 24. The image processing device 25
Is an image pickup means 26 such as a television camera, and a light source 27.
And a binarization circuit (not shown) for binarizing the image from the image pickup means 26. In addition, the filling device 1 includes means for identifying an area (projection view) of a horizontally long article from a binary image obtained by the binarization processing, means for storing the identified area, and a means for storing the horizontally long article. Means for storing an expected maximum area, means for determining whether the identified area exceeds the expected maximum area.

Further, the filling device 1 is a means for identifying an angle in the longitudinal direction of a horizontally long article from a binary image obtained by binarization processing, and a longitudinal direction of the horizontally long article identified by the identifying means. Is stored in the first storage means, second storage means for storing the angle in the longitudinal direction of the oblong article when the oblong article is filled in the container on the container transporting conveyor, and the first storage means. A means for calculating an angle difference between the angle in the longitudinal direction and the angle in the longitudinal direction stored in the second storage means, and a third storage means for storing the angle difference calculated by the means for calculating the angle difference are provided. Has been.

Further, the filling device 1 has a means for controlling the direction of the robot hand by gripping a horizontally long article, which will be described in detail below based on the angle difference stored in the third storage means. doing. In addition, the above-mentioned article conveying conveyor 2
A basket (not shown) is provided below the end on the traveling direction side of No. 3 for holding a plurality of horizontally long articles at the same time without sending them to the next step. Has been.

Further, the filling apparatus 1 has a container carrying conveyor 40. The container transporting conveyor 40 is arranged so as to be orthogonal to the position adjacent to the article transporting conveyor 23. A transmissive optical sensor 41 including a light emitting element 41a and a light receiving element 41b is provided at a filling position (position where the container is stopped) of the transport path of the container transporting conveyor 40. When it reaches the position of the sensor 41, it is detected by the transmissive optical sensor 41, whereby the conveyor 40 for conveying the container is produced.
Is controlled to stop.

In the vicinity of the article conveying conveyor 23 and the container conveying conveyor 40, a robot 50 capable of grasping and transferring a horizontally long article is arranged. The robot 50 is not particularly limited as long as it can hold and transfer a horizontally long article, but as an example, a robot equipped with a suction type robot hand will be described in detail below. As shown in FIG. 2, the suction robot hand 301 is attached to the tip of a robot body (not shown), and the suction pad 30 is attached.
2 and a robot hand body 303.

As the suction pad 302, as shown in FIG. 3, the shape of the opening on the lower surface is a horizontally long shape such as an ellipse or a rectangle, or as shown in FIG. It is preferable to use the one in which the apertures are arranged in parallel, since a laterally long article can be more reliably gripped. Also,
When the horizontally long product has a rounded shape such as fried shrimp, chikuwa, or sausage, as shown in FIG. 5, a suction pad having an opening 304 is provided at a position opposite to the lower end of the side surface. Is desirable. As a result, the edge of the opening 304 substantially coincides with the upper surface of the article during suction, and a large amount of air is absorbed by the suction pad 302.
It can be prevented from flowing into the inside. as a result,
Rounded items can be lifted. In this case, as the shape of the opening 304, for example, a semicircular shape,
There are semi-elliptical shapes.

The shape of the suction pad may be prismatic as shown in FIG. 5, or cylindrical as shown in FIG. 6, and may be cup-shaped or the like. Also, it is not particularly limited. Further, as shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, the maximum width of the lower surface of the suction pad 302 is the opening 3
If the width is wider than 04, both openings 30
4, a surface portion formed by a straight line connecting the opposite ends 305a and 305b and the edge 320a of the lower surface, and the opposite ends 305c and 30 of the two openings 304 on the other side.
The baffle plates 321 are attached to the straight lines connecting the 5d and the double-sided portion formed by the lower edge 320b. This makes it possible to more effectively prevent a large amount of air from flowing into the suction pad 302.

The material of the suction pad 302 is also not particularly limited, but when using food or the like that is easily crumbled as an article, it has flexibility such as rubber or synthetic resin in order to prevent the crumble during suction. It is preferable to adopt one.
The suction pad 302 is held at the tip of the robot hand body 303 in which the vacuum pressure passage 306 is arranged,
The vacuum pressure passage 306 communicates with the inside of the suction pad 302.

The suction pad 3 inside the vacuum pressure passage 306.
A pressure sensor 313 for detecting the degree of pressure reduction inside the suction pad 302 is provided at a position slightly above 02. In addition, the suction pad 30 of the vacuum pressure passage 306.
The end on the side not communicating with 2 is the first vacuum pressure distribution pipe 30.
7 and the first connecting pipe 308 are connected to the tank 309, and the tank 309 is connected to the second connecting pipe 31.
0, and is connected to a pump 312 via a second vacuum pressure distribution pipe 311.

The tank 309 can store water in the air sucked by the pump 312, fragments of articles, and the like at the bottom of the tank, and can prevent them from entering the pump 312. Further, by sufficiently reducing the degree of pressure reduction inside the tank 312 in advance, it is possible to suck the article by the suction pad 302 in a short time.

The first vacuum pressure distribution pipe 307 has such flexibility and length that it can sufficiently cope with the movement of the robot. Further, the first connecting pipe 308 has a first
A ball valve 314a and a second ball valve 314b are provided. A leak valve 316 for adjusting pressure is provided in the second connecting pipe 310. A control device 315 is connected to the leak valve 316 and the pump 312 to control the flow rate of the air to be sucked based on the degree of pressure reduction detected by the pressure sensor 313.

Next, the operation of the horizontally long article filling device will be described in detail. First, the conveyor 40 for container transportation is operated. When the container reaches the predetermined filling position, the light emitting element 4
It is detected by a transmission type optical sensor 41 composed of 1a and a light receiving element 41b, and the container transporting conveyor 40 is controlled to stop so that the container stops at the filling position.

On the other hand, the oblong articles supplied by the straight feeder 20 are individually separated by the ball feeder 21,
It is supplied to the article transporting conveyor 23. Next, when an oblong article is conveyed by the article conveying conveyor 23 and comes under the image processing device 25, it is detected by the transmissive optical sensor 24, and the linear feeder 20 and the ball feeder 2 are detected.
1. The article transporting conveyor 23 is controlled so as to stop.

Next, the horizontally long article is picked up by the television camera which is the image pickup means 26, and the obtained image is sent to the binarization circuit and subjected to the binarization process. The area (projection view) of the oblong article is identified based on the binarized image obtained by the binarization process. Next, the identified area is stored in the area storage means and compared with the expected maximum area stored in the means for storing the expected maximum area of the oblong article. As a result, when the identified area exceeds the expected maximum area, it is considered that a plurality of articles have been simultaneously supplied, and the robot is not gripped in the next step. As a result, the horizontally long articles fall and accumulate in a basket (not shown) provided below the end of the article conveying conveyor on the traveling direction side. When a certain amount of accumulated oblong articles accumulate,
Return to the straight feeder 20. In addition, instead of providing a basket,
It is also possible to provide a conveyor for returning to the straight feeder 20 or the ball feeder 21.

Next, when the area of the identified oblong article is equal to or smaller than the above-mentioned expected maximum area,
The longitudinal angle of the oblong article is identified by the means for identifying the longitudinal angle of the oblong article from the binarized image. That is, for example, a mathematical method for obtaining the moment of inertia is used to find the direction of the long axis of the oblong article, which is regarded as the longitudinal direction of the article, and the angle is identified and stored in the storage means.

When a horizontally long article such as a shrimp fly is used to align the head and tail, the head and tail are identified in addition to the longitudinal direction. As a specific method of identifying the head and tail, for example, the center of gravity is obtained from the binarized image described above, the farthest point from the center of gravity is obtained, and the side having the farthest point is regarded as the tail side. There are ways to do it. Next, the angle of the oblong article stored in the first storage means in the longitudinal direction and the oblong article in the container stored on the conveyor stored in the second storage means when the oblong articles are aligned in a predetermined direction and filled. The angle difference from the longitudinal angle of the article is calculated. In this case, when aligning the head and tail as described above, the angle difference is calculated so that the head side or the caudal side has a predetermined orientation. The angle difference thus obtained is stored in the third storage means.

On the other hand, the robot 50 has a ball valve 314.
b is closed, the pump 312 is operated, and the tank 30
The inside of 9 is adjusted to a sufficiently low pressure reduction degree of, for example, about -15 to -300 mmHg. Next, the robot 50 is operated to change the horizontal angle of the suction pad 302 according to the longitudinal direction of the horizontally long article. As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, for example, when the shape of the opening on the lower surface of the suction pad 302 is an oblong shape such as an ellipse or a rectangle, or a plurality of openings are arranged in parallel. When adopting things,
The suction pad 30 is aligned with the longitudinal direction of the horizontally long openings or the longitudinal direction of a plurality of openings arranged in parallel.
Change the horizontal angle of 2.

Next, the tip of the suction pad 302 is moved to a position where it comes into contact with the oblong article. Also, the suction pad 30
When a suction pad having openings is provided at the lower end of the side face as shown in FIG. 5 to FIG. 7, the suction pad 302 is positioned so that the tip of the opening 304 substantially matches the upper surface of the article. Change the direction so that it moves, and move it to a position in contact with the oblong article.

Next, the ball valve 314b is opened while continuing to operate the pump 312. Thereby, the vacuum pressure is applied from the tank 309 to the first connecting pipe 30.
8, first vacuum pressure distribution pipe 307 and robot hand body 3
03 through the vacuum pressure passage 306 to reach the inside of the suction pad 302. As a result, the oblong article is adsorbed to the adsorption pad 302.

At the same time, the pressure sensor 313 detects the degree of pressure reduction inside the suction pad 302, and the value is detected by the controller 3
Send to 15. Based on the value, the control device 315 controls the leak valve 31 so that the degree of pressure reduction can satisfy the following equation.
6 and / or the pump 312 is controlled to adjust the suction amount of air. (Decompression degree inside suction pad) x (opening area of suction pad) = (lifting force of article)> (estimated maximum weight of target article) * Aperture area in the above formula is the opening in the projection view from above. Means area.

As a specific control method for adjusting the suction amount of air, for example, a known control method capable of maintaining a predetermined value such as PID control may be adopted. As described above, by controlling the suction amount of air while detecting the degree of pressure reduction inside the suction pad 302, the degree of pressure reduction inside the suction pad (the force of lifting the article by the suction pad 302) is stably set to a predetermined value. Even if, for example, the surface of a frying product or the like has many irregularities and a large gap is created between the opening of the suction pad and the article, it can be reliably lifted.

Next, the direction of the suction pad 302 is changed on the basis of the angle difference stored in the third storage means while the article is suctioned by the suction pad 302. Next, the robot is operated to transfer the article to a predetermined position in the container.
Next, the ball valve 314b is closed and the ball valve 314a is opened. As a result, the atmospheric pressure reaches the inside of the suction pad 302 through the first connection pipe 308, the first vacuum pressure distribution pipe 307, and the vacuum pressure passage 306 of the robot hand body 303. As a result, the force for lifting the horizontally long article is released, the horizontally long article is released from the suction pad 302, and the horizontally long article can be filled in the container in a predetermined direction. In this case, the article can be released from the suction pad 302 in a shorter time by connecting the supply source of the pressurized air to the ball valve 314a.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, a grayscale image processing circuit for grayscale image processing of a picked-up image is adopted instead of the binarization circuit. Further, as still another embodiment of the present invention, a color image processing circuit for processing a captured color image can be adopted instead of the binarization circuit. The color image processing circuit identifies the angle in the longitudinal direction of the article by processing the R component, G component, and B component of the captured color image.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory view of a horizontally long article filling device according to an embodiment of the present invention,

FIG. 2 is an explanatory view of a suction type robot hand,

FIG. 3 is a plan view of the lower surface of the suction pad,

FIG. 4 is a plan view of the lower surface of another suction pad,

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of another suction pad,

FIG. 6 is a front view of another suction pad,

FIG. 7 is a plan view of the lower surface of the suction pad of FIG.

[Explanation of reference numerals] 1 filling device 20 straight feeder 21 ball feeder 25 image processing device 26 imaging means 27 light source 50 robot 302 suction pad 304 opening

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Internal reference number FI Technical display location // B25J 13/08 B25J 13/08 A B65G 47/14 101 B65G 47/14 101Z 47/90 47 / 90 A (56) Reference Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2-218578 (JP, A) Actual Opening 2-69703 (JP, U) Actual Opening Sho 60-42584 (JP, U) Actual Public Sho 38-9786 (JP, Y1)

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] 1. A supply feeder for feeding a directional article individually and sequentially, (b) an image pickup means for picking up an image of the article, and (c) an image picked up by the image pickup means for image processing. Angle identifying means for identifying the longitudinal angle of the article, (d) first storing means for storing the longitudinal angle of the article identified by the angle identifying means, (e) a conveyor for conveying the container, (f) ) Second storage means for storing an angle in the longitudinal direction of the article when the articles on the conveyor are aligned and packed in the predetermined direction.
(G) a means for calculating an angular difference between the longitudinal angle stored in the first storage means and a longitudinal angle stored in the second storage means, and (h) a means for calculating the angular difference. Third storage means for storing the calculated angle difference, (i)
A robot that holds and transfers the above-mentioned articles that are supplied,
(J) A device for filling a directional article, comprising: means for controlling the angle of the hand of the robot holding the article based on the angle difference stored in the third storage means. 2. The filling apparatus for directional articles according to claim 1, wherein the angle identifying means includes a binarizing circuit. 3. The device for filling a directional article according to claim 1, wherein the angle identifying means includes a grayscale image processing circuit. 4. The apparatus for filling a directional article according to claim 1, wherein the angle identifying means includes a color image processing circuit for detecting an R component, a G component, and a B component of a color image.