JP2711076B2 - Operation control method of welding robot - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an operation control of a welding robot, and more particularly to an operation control of a welding robot in a system for performing welding by a plurality of welding robots so that the welding work is equally shared among the welding robots. How to do.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, the automation of welding operations has been advanced, and the use of welding robots to reduce the labor of welding operations has been increasing. In particular, when the object to be welded is large, it is preferable from the viewpoint of improving the efficiency of the welding operation that a plurality of welding robots perform the welding operation at the welding work site while sharing the welding operation of each welding line to be welded. . When sharing the welding work for each welding line in this way, it is necessary to determine which welding robot is responsible for which welding line, but the method of determining the sharing depends on the experience of the field work. The current situation is roughly determined by Each welding robot is taught so as to execute a welding operation along a welding line in a work area in charge of the welding robot according to the determination of the division of the welding operation, and the actual welding operation is performed.

[0003]

However, when the size of the welding object is increased and the number of welding lines is increased, and the number of welding robots used is increased, the following problems occur. That is, as the number of welding lines increases, the number of combinations of welding lines to be shared by the welding robots increases significantly. Therefore, when the welding line is actually assigned to each welding robot and the welding operation is actually performed, the welding end time varies depending on the assignment of the welding line to be assigned to each welding robot, and the entire welding operation must be completed in the shortest time. Has become difficult. This occurs because the worker roughly assigned the welding work of each welding line of the welding target to each welding robot based on the experience of on-site work, and the welding completion time of each welding robot varied. Inevitably occurred, and the welding work was not always performed in the shortest time in most cases. Therefore, it is demanded that welding robots share welding lines so that welding operations can be completed in the shortest time in a welding target having a large number of welding lines. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the problems in the conventional technology, and when a plurality of welding robots share welding work of a welding object having a large number of welding lines, the work of each welding robot is performed. An object of the present invention is to provide an operation control method for a welding robot that controls the operation of the welding robot so that the sharing is even.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention for solving the above-mentioned problems is directed to a case in which a plurality of movable welding robots share an area to be welded installed in a common moving space and perform welding. In the method of controlling the operation of the welding robot,
Based on the data collection process for collecting data on all welding lines in the welding target area and the welding line data collected in the above data collection process, welding is performed so that the total welding time shared by each welding robot is equal. And a region dividing step of dividing the target region. Furthermore, in the above data collection process,
This is an operation control method for a welding robot that collects data by obtaining the center coordinates of each welding line and the time required for welding each welding line. Furthermore, in the above data collection process,
This is an operation control method of a welding robot that collects data by dividing a welding line and obtaining a center coordinate for each section and a time required for welding for each section.

Further, in the above-mentioned area dividing step, each of the large divided areas when the welding target area is divided into the large divided areas by the number of sets of welding robots arranged in one of the vertical and horizontal directions in the one direction. After dividing the welding target area so that the total welding time for each is equal, each large divided area is divided into medium divided areas by the number of welding robots arranged in the other direction in the other direction. This is an operation control method of a welding robot that divides each large divided region so that the total welding time for each middle divided region is equal. Further, when it is necessary to share one welding line with the welding robots arranged in the other direction and perform joint welding together, except for the joint welding line that is to be jointly welded once in the region dividing step, This is an operation control method for a welding robot that divides a welding target region into a middle divided region with respect to a remaining welding line, and then divides the joint welding line into a large divided region. Further, when there is a failed welding robot among the plurality of welding robots described above, the operation of the welding robot that divides the welding target area into the remaining welding target areas excluding the welding target area occupied by the failed welding robot. It is a control method. Further, the operation control of the welding robot for further dividing each of the middle divided areas divided in the above area dividing step into smaller divided areas and determining a welding work order between the respective smaller divided areas based on a simulation result of the welding work. Is the way.

[0006]

According to the present invention, data of all the welding lines in the welding target area are collected by the data collecting step. Based on the data of the welding lines collected in this manner, the welding target areas are shared by the area dividing step so that the total welding time shared by the welding robots becomes equal. Therefore, the operation control of the welding robot can be performed so that the work sharing of each welding robot is equal. Further, in the data collection step, the data of each welding line can be reliably collected by obtaining the center coordinates of each welding line and the time required for welding each welding line. Furthermore, in the data collection step, data can be collected more reliably by dividing the welding line and determining the center coordinates of each section and the time required for welding each welding line. Further, in the area dividing step, the welding target area is divided into large areas so that the total welding time is equal based on the number of sets of welding robots arranged in one of the vertical and horizontal directions. The region is divided into regions, and the number of welding robots arranged in the other direction is further divided into middle divided regions so that the total of the respective welding times is equal. Thereby, the work time required for each welding robot to weld each of the middle divided areas becomes more uniform.

Further, when it is necessary to jointly perform welding by sharing one welding line by the welding robots arranged in the other direction, the joint welding line is temporarily removed in the region dividing step and the remaining welding lines are removed. This can be dealt with by dividing the welding target region for the line into the middle divided region and then dividing the joint welding line into the large divided region. Further, when there is a failed welding robot, it can be dealt with by dividing the welding target area with respect to the remaining welding target area excluding the welding target area occupied by the welding robot. Further, in the region dividing step, the divided middle divided region is further divided into small divided regions, and a welding operation sequence is determined for each of the small divided regions based on a simulation result of the welding operation. If the welding operation is performed according to the welding operation sequence, each welding robot can complete the operation in the shortest welding time.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings to provide an understanding of the present invention. still,
The following examples are embodied examples of the present invention and do not limit the technical scope of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a system to which a welding robot operation control method according to an embodiment of the present invention can be applied, and FIG. 2 is a welding robot using the welding robot operation control method of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a schematic arrangement of the welding robot, etc. FIG.
FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a method of dividing a welding target area, and FIG.
Is a schematic explanatory view showing a method of determining a welding order for each welding robot, and FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing an occupied area by a failed welding robot. As shown in FIG.
In order to weld a welding target 11 having a plurality of welding robots 14 (see FIG. 4A), five portal posts 12 are provided so as to straddle the welding target 11.
Each of the welding robots 14 is arranged so as to be movable in the XYZ directions (vertical and horizontal height directions) by the moving mechanism 13. The welding target 11 is a large one having a relatively large number of welding lines, and a plurality (ten in the present embodiment) of welding robots 14 share the work of welding the welding target 11.

In the operation control method of the welding robot according to the present invention, as shown in FIG. 3A, data for geometrically defining each welding line 21 is collected in step S10, and a plurality of data are defined in the next step S11. The welding work sharing of the welding target 11 is determined so that the welding work time of each welding robot 14 becomes equal. Then, the work order of the welding robot 14 in the welding work sharing area determined in the last step S12 is determined. Each welding robot 1 to which the above method can be applied
As shown in FIG. 1, the system for controlling the operation of No. 4 has a control unit 2 using a computer. The control unit 2 is provided with a data collecting unit 3 and a region dividing unit 4 configured by operating the CPU according to a program stored in advance. The data collection means 3 includes a drawing system (hereinafter, referred to as a CAD system) 1 using a computer and a welding target 1.
1, the data of each welding line 21 is input. When designing the welding target 11 with the CAD system, the data of each welding line 21 uses data such as coordinates, length, and angle of each welding line 21 calculated in advance by the CAD system. By utilizing these data, it is easy to define each welding line 21 geometrically. When the data of each welding line 21 is input to the data collecting means 3 in the control unit 2 as described above, the data collecting means 3 calculates the center coordinates of each welding line 21 and the scheduled welding time.
The calculated center coordinates and the estimated welding time of each welding line 21 are input to the area dividing means 4, and the area dividing means 4 makes the welding work times of the plurality of welding robots 14 uniform. The welding target area of the welding target 11 is divided. Then, the data of each welding line 21 in the welding target area of each welding robot 14 set in this way is transmitted to each welding robot 14 via the interface 5, and each welding robot 14 performs each welding by the transmitted data. Each welding robot 14 is taught so as to perform the welding operation along the line 21, and the welding operation is performed.

The operation of the above system will be described below in association with the above method. In the system for controlling the operation of each of the welding robots 14, first, as shown in FIG.
A welding point in the welding target area designed by the CAD system or the like (Step S1) is picked up, and Step S2 is performed.
Sends the data of the welding line 21 to the data collecting means 3 (data collecting step). At this time, the data collection means 3 picks up the data of the welding line 21 (joint welding line) to be welded jointly by the welding robots 14 arranged in the horizontal direction, and removes the data from the calculation target (step S3). The joint welding line refers to, for example, a structure in which two robots simultaneously weld a wall in the height direction from the front and rear sides. If the failed welding robot 14 is known in advance, the data of the welding range of the welding robot 14 is excluded (step S4), and the center coordinates of the welding line 21 to be welded and the time required for welding are calculated. I do. As a result, the data is quantized and can be reliably collected. Furthermore, data can be collected more reliably by dividing the length of the weld line as appropriate and dividing the weld line, obtaining the center coordinates of each section and the time required for the coordinates of each weld line and quantizing them. Can also. The welding target data for which the center coordinates and the welding time have been calculated are sent to the region dividing means 4 to divide the welding target 11 in the vertical direction (step S5). For this division, the number of divisions = the number of sets of welding robots 14 in the vertical direction = the total number of welding robots 14 (10 in this embodiment) / the total number of welding robots 14 arranged in the horizontal direction (two in this embodiment). ) Is used, and in this embodiment, it is determined to divide into five equal parts.
Based on this determination, all welding lines 2 to be subjected to welding work
The total welding time of 1 is divided into five equal parts, and the large divided region 23 (see C in FIG. 4) is determined (region dividing step). Specifically, this is performed as follows.

The center coordinate position of the welding line 21 determined in steps S1 to S4 is scanned from the upper part in the vertical direction, and the welding time is added. A boundary line is set when the total welding time is an integral multiple of the total welding time / (the number of sets of the welding robots 14 in the vertical direction). This is called (vertical welding robot 14
By performing the number of sets -1) times, the division in step S5 can be performed. Further, the large divided area 23 is divided into two equal parts based on the number of welding robots 14 arranged side by side in the horizontal direction, and a middle divided area 24 (see D in FIG. 4) is determined (step S).
6). Specifically, this is performed as follows. In each large divided area 23, scanning is performed from the left in the horizontal direction, and the welding time is adjusted. The total of the welding time is the large divided area 23 in step S5.
A boundary line is set when it becomes an integral multiple of the welding time / the number of welding robots 14 in the horizontal direction. This is performed (the number of the welding robots 14 in the lateral direction minus one) times, whereby the division in step S6 is performed. With the above operation, the welding share of each robot can be determined. The joint welding line excluded in step S3 is divided into five in the vertical direction in the same manner as in step S5, so that the welding time for each welding robot 14 is equally divided in each large divided area 23.
, And the allocated portion is added to each of the middle divided regions 24 assigned by the welding robot 14 performing the joint work (step S7). Then, the welding operation sequence is determined by each welding robot 14 (step S8). In the data collecting step and the area dividing step, as shown in FIG. 4, the data of each welding line 21 excluding the portion to be jointly welded is quantized by the data collecting means 3 (FIG. 4).
A). Next, each welding line 21 is defined by dots 22 having different radii at the center coordinates of each welding line 21 according to the welding time of the welding line 21 (FIG. 4B). This each dot 2
2 to calculate the total welding time.
According to the step S5 of (b), the welding time is divided into five equal parts so as to be equal, and the welding time is divided into large divided areas 23.

Further, in step S6, the welding time is divided into two equal parts for each large divided area 23, each large divided area 23 is divided into each middle divided area 24, and the welding area of each welding robot 14 is determined. Is done. At this time, as shown in FIG. 5, for example, the middle divided area 24a shared by the welding robot 14a is divided into four equal parts, for example, into small divided areas 25. Then, a welding operation simulation in a case where all the robots weld the divided areas in the same order is performed on the welding line other than the joint operation and the welding line of the joint operation, and the operation sequence with the shortest total operation time is selected. For example, welding robot 1
4a, each sub-region 25 is defined as A1, B1, C
Assuming that welding is started from A1 when 1, D1 is set, all combinations of the welding order of A1 to D1 are as follows. A1 → B1 → C1 → D1, A1 → C1 → B1 → D1, A1 → D1 → B1 → C1, A1 → B1 → D1 → C1, A1 → C1 → D1 → B1, A1 → D1 → C1 → B1 Are simulated, and the welding order is determined on the basis of the results so as to minimize the welding work time. Each such middle divided area 24
The determination of the welding order of the small divided areas 25 in the
welding robots 14b to 14d sharing b to 24d ...
Are performed sequentially. In this case, each welding sharing area is divided into four equal parts. However, when each robot exists in the same area, it is sufficient that no interference occurs. Therefore, any division number that satisfies this condition may be used. However, the number of combinations (number of times) for performing the welding simulation increases.

When a plurality of welding robots 14 have a faulty welding robot 14, as shown in FIG. 6, an area 30 occupied by the faulty welding robot 14 is required.
Cannot be welded by another welding robot 14. Therefore, the dots 22a in the area 30 are excluded from the welding range, and the welding of the welding target 11 is completed.
Further, when one welding line exceeds the operating range of one robot, if the assignment is determined for each welding line, an area where all the welding lines cannot be actually welded occurs. In such a case, the above-described method of dividing the welding line is used. For example, the target welding line may be divided in an area where one robot can perform welding, and the assignment may be determined. When the operation of the welding robot is controlled in this manner, each welding robot 14 is controlled.
Welding time becomes almost equal, and the welding work in the shortest time is reliably realized as compared with the case where the welding work sharing of each welding robot 14 is roughly determined by the experience of the worker as in the past. . In the above-described embodiment, the welding target area is divided in the vertical direction into the large divided area 23 in the area dividing step, and then is divided in the horizontal direction into the middle divided area 24. It may be divided in order. That is, it is only necessary to divide the image in one of the vertical and horizontal directions and then divide the image in the other direction. In the above embodiment, the number of robots in the horizontal direction is two in each set of robots in the vertical direction. However, in actual use, the number of robots in each set may be different. .

[0014]

Since the welding robot operation control method according to the present invention is configured as described above, the welding object is divided so that the work time of each welding robot is equal, and the welding object is divided into the divided areas. The welding operation can be performed in a state where the welding operation time of each welding line is reduced to the minimum time by each welding robot.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a system to which an operation control method of a welding robot according to an embodiment of the present invention can be applied.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a schematic arrangement of a welding robot and the like using a welding robot operation control method.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation control method of the welding robot of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a method of dividing a welding target area.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing a method of determining a welding order for each welding robot.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing an area occupied by a failed welding robot.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 Control part 3 Data collecting means (Execute data collecting step) 4 Area dividing means (Perform area dividing step) 21 Welding line 23 Large dividing area 24 Medium dividing area 25 Small dividing area

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Kiyoshi Hashimoto 1-2-2 Nakahara, Miya-machi, Toyohashi-shi, Aichi Japan, Kobe Steel, Ltd. Toyohashi FA / Robot Center (56) References JP-A-8-57644 (JP) JP-A-7-251268 (JP, A) JP-A-2-263576 (JP, A)

Claims (7)

(57) [Claims] 1. A method for controlling the operation of each welding robot when a plurality of movable welding robots share and weld a welding target area installed in a common moving space. Based on the data collection process of collecting welding line data and the data of all welding lines collected in the data collection process, the welding target area is divided so that the total welding time shared by each welding robot is equal. An operation control method for a welding robot, comprising: a region dividing step. 2. The operation control method for a welding robot according to claim 1, wherein in the data collecting step, the data is collected by obtaining a center coordinate of each welding line and a time required for welding each welding line. 3. The operation control method for a welding robot according to claim 1, wherein in the data collecting step, the welding line is sectioned, and data is collected by obtaining a center coordinate of each section and a time required for welding for each section. . 4. In the area dividing step, the welding target area is divided into large divided areas by the number of sets of welding robots arranged in one of the vertical and horizontal directions in each of the large divided areas. After dividing the welding target area so that the sum of the welding times is equal, each of the large divided areas is further divided into medium divided areas by the number of welding robots arranged in the other direction in the other direction. 2. The operation control method for a welding robot according to claim 1, wherein each of the large divided areas is divided such that the total welding time for each of the medium divided areas is equal. 5. When it is necessary to share one welding line with the welding robots arranged in the other direction and perform joint welding, the joint welding line to be jointly welded once in the region dividing step is excluded. 5. The operation control method for a welding robot according to claim 4, wherein the welding target area is divided into a middle divided area with respect to the remaining welding line, and then the joint welding line is divided into a large divided area. 6. When there is a defective welding robot among the plurality of welding robots, the welding target area is divided with respect to the remaining welding target area excluding the welding target area occupied by the failed welding robot. 5. The operation control method for a welding robot according to 1 or 4. 7. The method according to claim 4, wherein each of the intermediate divided areas divided in the area dividing step is further divided into small divided areas, and a welding operation sequence between the small divided areas is determined based on a simulation result of the welding operation. Operation control method of the welding robot described in the above.