JPH0577179A - Industrial robot - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an industrial robot easy to perform maintenance. CONSTITUTION:There is provided a positioning circuit 17 for reading maintenance attitude information from a maintenance attitude storage circuit 16 by inputting maintenance demand signal so as to move a robot body 6 to set it into the attitude indicated by the maintenance position information. At the time of performing maintenance, the positioning circuit 17 reads maintenance information and moves the robot body 6 on the basis of the maintenance information so as to set the attitude and position of the robot body 6 into the state indicated by the maintenance information. The attitude and position of the robot body 6 can be thereby set easily into the state easy for maintenance, and this results in improving maintenance work performance.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an industrial robot that plays back teaching work information and operates a robot body based on the work information to perform work on a work.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As an example of a conventional industrial robot, work information for each block taught by an operator is stored in a storage means in advance, the work information is read from the storage means at the time of playback, and based on this work information. There is one in which a robot body is operated to perform work on a work. In this industrial robot, when performing maintenance on the robot body,
The operation is stopped after the power supply from the drive source is interrupted, and the operation of the entire robot body and thus the entire apparatus is stopped (the ending operation is performed).

[0003]

By the way, in the industrial robot, for example, it is sometimes necessary to perform maintenance while the robot body is operating in an emergency. However, in the industrial robot described above,
Since the ending operation is performed in performing the maintenance, the robot main body is in a stopped state at the time when, for example, the maintenance request signal is input to the control unit. For this reason,
In order to perform maintenance, the posture and position of the robot had to be changed to a state in which maintenance was easy, and the workability in maintenance was poor.

An object of the present invention is to provide an industrial robot which can be easily maintained.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention stores the teaching work information in advance in the storage means, and the control means reads the work information from the storage means to obtain this work information. In an industrial robot that operates a robot body based on the above, it has a maintenance information storage unit for storing maintenance posture information for the robot body in advance, and the robot maintenance posture information is stored from the maintenance information storage unit by inputting a maintenance request signal. The control means is provided with a positioning circuit for reading and displacing the robot body to the posture indicated by the robot maintenance posture information.

In this case, when the maintenance request signal is input to the control means during the operation of the robot body, the blocks of the work information at the time of the maintenance request signal are reproduced up to the block end of the block. A target block reproducing circuit for completing the operation of the robot body and a restart coping circuit for reading work information from the block next to the block reproduced by the target block reproducing circuit may be provided.

[0007]

According to this structure, the maintenance information is stored in advance in the maintenance information storage section, so that when performing maintenance, the positioning circuit reads the maintenance information, and the robot main body is read based on this maintenance information. To set the posture and position of the robot body to the state indicated by the maintenance information.

By providing the target block reproducing circuit and the restart coping circuit in the control means, when a maintenance request signal is input during maintenance, the target block reproducing circuit blocks the blocks corresponding to the time when the maintenance request signal is input. While the robot body is reproduced to the end to complete the operation of the robot main body, the work information can be read from the block next to the block reproduced by the target block reproduction circuit after the maintenance is completed, for example.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An industrial robot according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. The industrial robot of this embodiment is used for painting. In the figure, the conveyor 1 is configured to be driven by the conveyor driving means 2 so that the work 3 such as a frame of an automobile can be conveyed to the painting work area 4. There is. A robot body 6 having a spray gun 5 is provided in the coating work area 4 and is driven by a robot body driving means 7. The conveyor drive means 2 is provided with an interlock mechanism (not shown), and when a maintenance-in-progress signal, which will be described later, is in an on state, the conveyor 1 is locked by interlocking.
When the maintenance in-progress signal is turned off, the interlock is released.

A robot control panel 9 having a robot control circuit 8 for controlling the operation of the robot body 6 is provided so as to be connected to the robot body driving means 7. Further, a conveyor control panel 11 having a conveyor control circuit 10 for controlling the operation of the conveyor 1 is provided in connection with the conveyor driving means 2. Robot control circuit 8 and conveyor control circuit
A line control panel 12 is provided so as to be connected to each of the 10 and to be able to integrally control them.

The line control board 12 has a storage circuit 13 for storing in advance work information such as work procedures, work positions, work conditions, etc., which are taught during teaching.
In this case, the work information is composed of four blocks of the first block to the fourth block corresponding to the work procedure, and the work information of the first block to the fourth block is executed, so that the work 3 The part corresponding to the block of is painted. Further, the line control board 12 reads out work information from the storage circuit 13 and outputs a control signal to the robot control circuit 8 and the conveyor control circuit 10 based on the work information to output the work information.
Further, a main control circuit 14 for controlling the conveyor is provided, and a maintenance request switch 15 is provided on the front surface thereof. When the maintenance request switch 15 is pressed, the signal is input to the main control circuit 14, which causes the main control circuit 14 to move to the robot control circuit 8.
A maintenance request signal is output to and a stop command signal is output to the conveyor control circuit 10.

A line control board connected to the main control circuit 14
Reference numeral 12 denotes a maintenance information storage circuit 16 that stores in advance maintenance posture information for the robot body 6,
A positioning circuit 17 which reads the maintenance information from the maintenance information storage circuit 16 by inputting the maintenance request signal and drives and displaces the robot body 6 based on the maintenance information so that the posture and the position can be easily maintained. A power switch operating circuit 20 capable of operating power switches 18 and 19 on the robot side and the conveyor side, which will be described later, is provided.

Further, when a maintenance request signal is input to the line control panel 12 by connecting to the main control circuit 14,
Of the work information, the blocks corresponding to the time when the maintenance request signal is input are reproduced to the block end and the target block reproduction circuit 20 that completes the operation of the robot body 6
Is provided and the target block reproducing circuit 20
A restart coping circuit 21 for reading work information from the block next to the block reproduced by is provided, and in this embodiment,
The restart handling circuit 21 reads the work information by inputting the maintenance request signal.

The robot power switches 18 and 19 for the robot and the conveyor are provided so as to be connected to the robot body driving means 7 and the conveyor driving means 2, and the robot is controlled to be turned on and off by a power switch operating circuit 20 and manual operation. The main body drive means 7 and the conveyor drive means 2 can be turned on and off. In this embodiment, the robot control panel 9 and the conveyor control panel configured as described above are used.
11 and the line control board 12 constitute a control means.

In the industrial robot configured as described above, when the operator presses the maintenance request switch 15 while the robot body 6 is operating, the maintenance subroutine shown in FIG. 3 is executed. That is, the main control circuit 14 outputs a stop command signal to the conveyor control circuit 10 to stop the conveyor (step S1) and outputs a maintenance request signal to the robot control circuit 8 (step S1).
S2). The robot control circuit 8 judges whether or not the robot body 6 is in the process of painting the work 3 by inputting the maintenance request signal (step S3),
YES is determined when painting is in progress, and the target block playback circuit
20 reproduces the work information up to the block end of the corresponding block (step S4), completes the operation of the robot body 6 (step S5), and at the same time the robot control circuit 8
Stores the work information up to the completion in a storage unit (not shown) (step S6). If NO is determined in step S3, the process directly proceeds to step S6 to perform the process.

Following step S6, the main control circuit 14
The maintenance posture information is read from the maintenance information storage circuit 16 (step S7), and the maintenance execution signal is turned on (step S8). The line control circuit interlocks the conveyor 1 through the interlock mechanism at this stage by inputting the maintenance-in-progress signal in the ON state so that the conveyor does not operate.

Next, the main control circuit 14 causes the robot main body 6 having the spray gun 5 via the robot main body driving means 7.
Is controlled and moved to set the posture corresponding to the maintenance posture information (step S9), and it is determined whether or not the movement is completed (step S10). When the movement is completed, the power switch operation circuit 20 moves to the robot side. The power switch 18 is turned off to stop the robot body driving means 7 so that maintenance can be performed (step S11), the maintenance subroutine is terminated, and the process returns to the main routine for processing.

When the operator performs maintenance of the robot body 6 in this state and the maintenance is completed and the robot side power switch 18 is turned on, the paint restoration subroutine shown in FIG. 4 is executed. That is,
When the ON signal of the robot power switch 18 is input,
Before this signal, it is determined whether maintenance has been performed (step S20). If NO is determined, normal painting work is performed and the process is returned to the main routine for execution. The start-up handling circuit 21 reads the work information up to the work completed portion and the work information from the block next to the work completed portion stored in step S6 (step S21), and reads the work information from the block next to the work completed portion block. The robot body 6 having the spray gun 5 is moved so as to have a posture according to the work information (step S22
), It is determined whether or not the movement is completed (step S23), and Y
When it is judged as ES and the conveyor operating conditions are met, the maintenance execution signal is turned off and the interlock of the conveyor 1 is released (step S24).

Next, it is judged whether or not the maintenance request signal is in the off state (step S25), and if YES is judged and the interlock of the conveyor 1 is released, the main control circuit 14 The robot body 6 and the conveyor 1 are controlled based on the work information from the block following the work completion block read by the restart coping circuit 21 to restart the painting work (step S26).

As described above, the maintenance information is stored in advance in the maintenance information storage circuit 16, and when performing maintenance, the positioning circuit 17 reads the maintenance information and moves the robot body 6 based on this maintenance information. Since the robot body 6 is set to the posture indicated by the maintenance information, the robot body 6 can be automatically placed in a posture that facilitates maintenance and the workability in maintenance can be improved.

When performing maintenance, the target block reproducing circuit 20 is activated by inputting a maintenance request signal.
However, while the block at the time of inputting the maintenance request signal is reproduced up to the block end and the operation of the robot body 6 is completed, after the maintenance is finished, the restart coping circuit 21 makes the next block of the block reproduced by the target block reproducing circuit 20 The work information can be read from the block, and the work on the work 3 by the robot body 6 can be quickly restarted even when the maintenance work is performed.

[0022]

Since the present invention is the industrial robot configured as described above, the positioning circuit sets the posture and position of the robot body to the state indicated by the maintenance information when performing maintenance. The robot body can be easily maintained, and the workability in maintenance can be improved. In this case, by providing the target block reproducing circuit and the restart countermeasure circuit, when performing maintenance, the target block reproducing circuit completes the operation of the robot main body for the blocks corresponding to the input of the maintenance request signal when the maintenance request signal is input. On the other hand, after the maintenance is completed, the restart coping circuit can read the work information from the block next to the block reproduced by the target block reproduction circuit, which allows the robot body to perform the work on the work even when the maintenance work is performed. It can be restarted quickly.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing an industrial robot according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a side view of a work showing the contents of work information of the industrial robot.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a maintenance subroutine of a control program for the industrial robot.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a paint restoration subroutine of a control program of the industrial robot.

[Explanation of symbols]

 6 Robot main body 9 Robot control panel 11 Conveyor control panel 12 Line control panel 13 Storage circuit 16 Maintenance information storage circuit 17 Positioning circuit 20 Target block playback circuit 21 Restart countermeasure circuit

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An industrial robot that stores teaching work information in storage means in advance, reads the work information from the storage means by the control means, and operates the robot main body based on the work information. It has a maintenance information storage unit for storing posture information in advance, and reads a robot maintenance posture information from the maintenance information storage unit by inputting a maintenance request signal to displace the robot body to the posture indicated by the robot maintenance posture information. An industrial robot characterized in that a positioning circuit is provided in the control means. 2. The work information is configured in a form in which a plurality of blocks are assembled, and when a maintenance request signal is input during the operation of the robot body, for the blocks of the work information when the maintenance request signal is input. Is a target block playback circuit that completes the operation of the robot body by playing back to the block end of the block,
2. The industrial robot according to claim 1, wherein the control means is provided with a restart coping circuit for reading work information from a block next to the block reproduced by the target block reproducing circuit.