JPH05173626A - Method and device for off-line teaching - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To eliminate need for interface hardware between the off-line teaching device and a teaching box. CONSTITUTION:The control circuit 28 of the off-line teaching device includes an HD controller 34, a display controller 36, a main memory 38, and a CPU 40, which displays image information of the teaching box and a robot main body, read out of a HD through the HD controller 34, on a graphic display. The teaching box on this graphic display is operated on a keyboard and with a mouse to operate the robot main body displayed on the graphic display, thereby generating off-line teaching data.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to offline teaching for creating offline teaching data of an industrial robot displayed on the same screen by inputting operation information for operating a teaching box displayed on a graphic display. A method and apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Robots are often used in the industry for the purpose of welding and the like, and a method of creating teaching data of this robot by an off-line teaching device is widely used. That is, a robot, a work and the like are displayed on a screen of a graphic display as a three-dimensional image, and the robot is operated on the three-dimensional image to perform a simulation.

In this case, a teaching box of an actual machine is connected to the offline teaching device, and by operating this teaching box, the robot displayed on the screen of the graphic display is operated to perform simulation to create teaching data. The technical idea to do so is disclosed in "Offline Programming Device" of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-269105.

This "offline programming device"
The teaching box of the actual machine is connected to the offline teaching device, and the operator operates the teaching box while observing the graphic display play of the offline teaching device to create teaching data.

[0005]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional technique, the teaching box must be replaced every time the model of the industrial robot to be simulated is different. Therefore, the interface hardware between the offline teaching device and the teaching box is required, and the production cost for producing this hardware is required. In addition, there is an inconvenience that a space for installing the manufactured hardware must be secured near the offline teaching device.

Furthermore, since the teaching box must be attached and detached every time the offline teaching data is created, there is a problem that the joint part of the teaching box may be damaged and the teaching box may become unusable.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an offline teaching device and a teaching box are provided by displaying the teaching box on a graphic display on which a three-dimensional image of an industrial robot is displayed. It is an object of the present invention to provide an off-line teaching method and device capable of eliminating the need for hardware for interfacing with.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, the first invention is to display a three-dimensional image of a robot on a graphic display and operate the three-dimensional image of the robot by external input. An offline teaching method for creating an offline teaching program, comprising displaying image information of a teaching box for operating a three-dimensional image of the robot on a graphic display on which the three-dimensional image of the robot is displayed.
Based on the external input information for operating the teaching box, and the second step for operating the three-dimensional image of the robot by operating the teaching box displayed on the graphic display by external input. And a third step of creating a robot teaching program.

A second invention is an offline teaching apparatus for displaying a three-dimensional image of a robot on a graphic display and operating the three-dimensional image of the robot by an external input to create an offline teaching program. , Image information storage means for storing image information of a teaching box for operating a three-dimensional image of the robot, display means for displaying image information of the teaching box stored in the image information storage means, and display on the display means It is characterized by comprising: input means for operating the teaching box, and teaching program creation means for creating a teaching program for the robot based on the input operation information.

[0010]

In the offline teaching method and apparatus according to the present invention, the teaching box for operating the three-dimensional image of the robot is displayed on the graphic display on which the three-dimensional image of the robot is displayed, and the teaching box is input by the input means. By operating the three-dimensional image of the robot.

The teaching program creating means creates a teaching program for the robot based on the operation information for operating the teaching box.

Therefore, the offline teaching program can be created without using the teaching box of the actual machine.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An off-line teaching method and apparatus according to the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 illustrates a robot control system 10 embodying the present invention.

The robot control system 10 comprises a robot control device 12 and an offline teaching device 14. The robot control device 12 controls the robot body 16 and a robot body 16.
Teaching box 19 that drives the machine manually
Composed of and.

The offline teaching device 14 includes a graphic display 20 for displaying a three-dimensional image of the robot body 16, a keyboard 22 and a mouse 24 which are input means for giving various commands, and a flexible disk (hereinafter referred to as FD). An FD driver (hereinafter, referred to as FDD) 26 that stores information and a control circuit 28 are included.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the control circuit 28.

The control circuit 28 includes a keyboard 22 and a mouse 2
4 and the FDD 26, an input / output controller 30 that is an interface circuit, and a hard disk (hereinafter, HD
HD controller 34 for storing information in 32, a display controller 36 for displaying images and the like on the graphic display 20, and a main memory 3
8 and a CPU 40.

A method of creating offline teaching data by the offline teaching device 14 of the robot control system 10 configured as above will be described.
This will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 6.

First, a method of creating image information of the teaching box will be described.

Specifications of basic functions of the teaching box are determined (step S31), and switches are set based on the function specifications (step S32). Then
The appearance of the teaching box including the shape, size, position, etc. of the switch is set (step S33), and the function is assigned to each of the displayed switches (step S3).
4) A program is created according to these switch functions (step S35).

Image information of the teaching box created in steps S31 to S35,
FIG. 1 shows a method of creating offline teaching data based on the image information of the robot stored in advance.
This will be described with reference to FIGS. 2, 4 and 6.

The robot's three-dimensional image information previously stored in the HD 32 is stored in the CPU via the HD controller 34.
The image information is read by 40 and displayed on the graphic display 20 via the display controller 36 (see FIG. 6) (step S41). Next, the image information of the teaching box stored in the HD 32 is displayed on the graphic display 20 similarly to the three-dimensional image of the robot (see FIG. 6) (step S).
42).

The operator operates the keyboard 22 and the mouse 24 to operate the graphic display 2
When the switch of the teaching box displayed at 0 is selected, the CPU 40 operates the robot displayed on the graphic display 20 based on this selection information and creates offline teaching data (step S43).

The created offline teaching data is stored in the main memory 38 and also stored in the FD via the input / output controller 30 and the FDD 26 (step S44).

The method of creating the offline teaching data in step S43 will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

The operation command of the teaching box input using the keyboard 22 and the mouse 24 is read (step S51), the CPU 40 reads it through the input / output controller 30 (step S52), and this operation command is analyzed (step S53). .. The analyzed operation command is converted into a command (step S54), the converted command is converted into a code (step S55), and the robot image is operated by the code converted command (step S56).

The code-converted operation command for operating the robot image is stored in the main memory 38 (step S57).

The offline teaching data for each step thus created is edited in the offline teaching device 14 to become an offline teaching program, which is stored in the FD via the FDD 26.
F where this offline teaching program is stored
By attaching D to the robot controller 18 and reading the teaching program stored in the FD,
The robot main body 16 can be driven by the offline teaching program created by the offline teaching device 14.

As described above, according to this embodiment,
The teaching box and the robot are simultaneously displayed on the same graphic display 20, and the displayed teaching box is the keyboard 22 and the mouse 2.
The robot main body 16 displayed on the graphic display 20 is operated and the off-line teaching program is created by operating the control unit 4 as described above.

Therefore, the teaching box 19 of the actual machine
Since it is not used, the interface between the offline teaching device 14 and the teaching box 19 can be reduced, and the hardware manufacturing cost can be reduced.

Furthermore, since it is not necessary to provide a space for arranging the interface, the space near the offline teaching device 14 can be effectively utilized.

[0033]

With the offline teaching method and apparatus according to the present invention, an offline teaching program can be created based on the operation information for operating the teaching box displayed on the graphic display without using the teaching box of the actual machine. ..

Therefore, the interface hardware between the offline teaching device and the teaching pendant of the actual machine is not required, the production cost of the hardware can be reduced, and it is not necessary to attach or detach the teaching pendant to the interface hardware. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the joint portion of the teaching box from being damaged.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a robot control system that implements an offline teaching method and apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a control circuit in the off-line teaching device of the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for creating a teaching box image displayed on the offline teaching apparatus of the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart for creating offline teaching data in the embodiment shown in FIG.

5 is a flowchart showing a method for creating offline teaching data in the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a robot and a teaching box displayed in the offline teaching device of the embodiment shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 ... Robot control system 12 ... Robot control device 14 ... Offline teaching device 16 ... Robot body 18 ... Robot controller 19 ... Teaching box 20 ... Graphic display 22 ... Keyboard 24 ... Mouse 26 ... FDD 28 ... Control circuit 32 ... HD 38 ... Main Memory 40 ... CPU

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued Front Page (72) Inventor Masakatsu Kaneko 1-10-1 Shin-Sayama, Sayama-shi, Saitama Honda Engineering Co., Ltd.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An offline teaching method for displaying a three-dimensional image of a robot on a graphic display and operating the three-dimensional image of the robot by an external input to create an offline teaching program. A first step of displaying image information of a teaching box for operating an image on a graphic display on which the three-dimensional image of the robot is displayed, and by operating the teaching box displayed on the graphic display by an external input ,
Offline teaching comprising: a second step of operating a three-dimensional image of the robot; and a third step of creating a teaching program for the robot based on external input information for operating the teaching box. Method. 2. An offline teaching apparatus for displaying a three-dimensional image of a robot on a graphic display and operating the three-dimensional image of the robot by external input to create an offline teaching program. An image information storage unit for storing image information of a teaching box for operating an image, a display unit for displaying image information of the teaching box stored in the image information storage unit, and an operation of the teaching box displayed on the display unit. An offline teaching device, comprising: input means for performing the teaching operation; and teaching program creating means for creating a teaching program for the robot based on the input operation information.