JPH07200028A - Controller for automatic equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a controller capable of independently performing control for mutually separated plural automatic equipments even while mutual communication is performed in the respective equipments and easily moving and changing a part of the automatic equipments. CONSTITUTION:This controller is provided with a first control unit 10 for a first automatic equipment and a second control unit 20 for a second automatic equipment, the first control unit is provided with a first memory 14, the second control unit is provided with a second memory 24 and the contents of the first memory and the contents of the second memory are duplicated so as to be the same by serial communication. Then, when data for the first control unit are present in the first memory, the first control unit takes out the data from the first memory. When the data for the second control unit are present in the second memory, the second control unit takes out the data from the second memory.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a control device for controlling an automatic device such as an automatic assembly robot.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a control device for an automatic device such as an automatic assembling device, a part for controlling the whole operation procedure (hereinafter, master part) and a part for controlling positioning (hereinafter, slave part) are provided. Data has been passed through a multi-bus or a 2-port RAM. However, in the above method, when a multi-bus or a 2-port RAM is used, the wiring between the master unit and the personal computer or TP (teaching table), the power line between the slave unit and the robot, the encoder line, and the signal line of the sensor line. The length of the wiring has changed depending on the installation conditions such as a factory, and the length of the wiring has changed. Even when the wiring has been broken, there are many broken points, which requires a great deal of labor.

Therefore, it is known that the master unit and the slave unit are regarded as one functional module, and information is exchanged via a network repeater.
No. 83 proposed.

[0004]

However, when a network repeater is used, the layout of the repeater and the wiring from it are bothersome, and when controlling a plurality of automatic machines, the repeater is permissible. It becomes impossible, and control such as automatic machine selection for communication becomes complicated. An even greater problem is that communication time is required. For example, if a repeater is used, the time required is 10 times or more that of a bus or 2-port RAM.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is a control device for an automatic device, which enables independent control of a plurality of automatic devices that are spaced apart from each other, while communicating with each other. At the same time, it proposes a control device in which a part of automatic equipment can be easily moved or changed.

In order to achieve the above object, a control device for controlling an automatic device having at least one automatic device according to the present invention comprises: a first control unit for controlling an operation procedure of the automatic device; A second control unit for controlling the automatic device according to the operating procedure, the first control unit having a first memory, and the second control unit having a second memory , The control device is
A means for copying by communication so that the contents of the first memory and the contents of the second memory are the same;
When the data for the second control unit is in the second memory, the control unit of 1) retrieves the data from the second memory.

The communication between the memories and the duplication of the data between the memories allow the first control unit and the second control unit to be freely separated from each other, and between them. Many wirings can be short and have a fixed length. Also, disconnection at that part will be reduced. Furthermore, when the number of constituent devices of the automatic machine is increased or changed, it is possible to easily add more and replace the slave unit.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the entire embodiment system. An assembly robot 500 (hereinafter abbreviated as a robot), which is also one of automatic assembly equipment, is driven in a front-rear vertical direction and a turning direction by a servo motor (not shown),
A finger for holding a work (not shown) is moved. The stocker 600 is a magazine 601 filled with works 602.
601 with a servo motor 610
Is moved to the work supply position of the robot. The assembling robot 500 is located apart from the stocker 600.

The operation control of the robot and the stocker is performed by a master unit 10 for controlling the entire operation procedure, an A slave unit 20 for controlling the positioning of the robot servo motor according to an instruction from the master unit 10, and a stocker servo motor. And the B slave unit 30 that controls the positioning of the. The A slave unit 20 is housed in the housing on the robot side, and the B slave unit 30 is housed in the housing on the stocker side.

The master unit 10 and the slave units 20, 3
Since 0s are separated from each other, they are connected by serial communication cables 450 and 460, respectively. Further, between the A slave unit 20 and the robot 500, motor power lines and encoder lines are connected by the number of NC motors and signal lines from the sensor, and the B slave unit 3
0 and the stocker 600 are similarly connected.

Next, the internal structure of the control device will be described with reference to FIG. The master unit 10 includes a CPU 11 and a ROM 1
2, RAM 13, shared memories 14 and 15, and serial I / O for input / output to / from the personal computer 1 and teaching table (TP) 2.
(SIO) 15 and 16. ROM1
As shown in FIG. 3A, 2 includes a program 121 that interprets and executes a program written in a robot language, a program 122 that teaches data regarding a target position, and an interface program 123 for communication with a slave unit.

As shown in FIG. 3B, the RAM 13 has programs 130 and 1 for operating procedures of the robot and stocker.
32, a teaching point 131 for a robot and a teaching point 133 for a stocker are stored. The operating procedure program is created by the operator via the personal computer 1 or TP2 and is stored in the storage area in the RAM 13. The teaching points are also taught by the personal computer 1 or TP2 according to the target position data teaching program 122 and stored in the RAM 13.

The CPU 11 of the master unit sequentially reads out the operation procedure program in the RAM 13 and executes it by the language interpretation execution program 121. Here, consider a case where there is a command accompanied by an actual operation such as a move command. If the movement command is a command to the robot 500, the CPU
Reference numeral 11 reads out the target position of the command from the memory 131 and writes it together with the operation command in the shared memory 14 according to the interface for communication with the slave unit 20. On the other hand, when the command is the command to the stocker 600, the target position of the command is read from the memory 133 and written in the shared memory 15 together with the operation command. The contents of the shared memories 14 and 15 are sent to the shared memories 24 and 34, respectively.

The A slave unit 20, as shown in FIG.
CPU 21, ROM 22, RAM 23, shared memory 2
4, I / O for inputting / outputting with the interfaces 25 and 26, the sensor (limit switch) 7, the solenoid 8 and the like.
It is composed of O27. The interface 25 outputs a current command to the motor, supplies power to the motor 5 through the AMP (amplifier) 3, counts pulses from the encoder 6 with the counter 4, fetches them into the interface 26, and feeds them back as current position information. It

As shown in FIG. 4, the ROM 22 has a communication interface 2 for receiving an operation command from the master unit.
22 and a positioning / driving program 221 for performing an actual operation from the operation command are stored. The B slave unit 30 has the same configuration. Next, communication between the master unit 10 and the A slave unit 20 will be described with reference to FIG.

As described above, the master unit 10 executes according to the operation procedure program, and when there is an operation command, the operation command and necessary data are written to the shared memory 14 according to the communication interface to notify the slave unit. . The B slave unit 20 constantly monitors the storage of the operation command in the shared memory 24 in its own place, and if there is the command, it reads necessary data such as the target position 201 and operates according to the positioning drive program 221. .

The shared memories 14 and 24 are connected by a communication cable 450, and if a write operation is performed at an arbitrary address in one shared memory, the shared memory itself performs high-speed serial communication and the other shared memory is connected. It has a means capable of writing the same data to the same address in the. That is, each of the two shared memories 14 and 24 holds exactly the same data, and it is possible to rewrite the data in the other shared memory by independently writing the data in the shared memory. Is. The same applies to the master unit 10 and the B slave unit 30.

The flow when the tenth line of the operation program example shown in FIG. 6A is executed will be described with reference to FIG. 6B. MOV P (1) in FIG. 6B is a movement command to the teaching point P (1) for the robot 500. When the master unit 10 interprets that it is a MOV instruction in the program to be executed (step S1), the teaching point P (1) is set to the robot target position area 10 of the shared memory 14.
1 (step S2), and the MOV command is written in the robot operation command area 100 (FIG. 5) (step S3).

The A-slave unit 20 monitors the robot operation command area 200 (step S11), and when it knows that there is any command, it extracts and interprets the command (step S12), and the command is sent. When the MOV command is recognized, the target position of the command is read from the robot target position area 201 of the shared memory 24 (step S13),
Move to P (1) (step S14).

When the movement is completed, it is judged whether or not there is an error (step S15). If the error occurs, the error code is written in the robot error code area 204 (step S16). If there is no error, the error code is written. Instead, the robot completion flag is set in the area 205 (step S17). The master unit monitors the operation completion flag area 105 (step S4). When the flag is enabled, the error code is read from the robot error code area 104 (step S5) and it is judged whether there is an error (step S6). If there is not, go to the next instruction, and if there is an error, go to error processing.

During this time, since the B slave unit 30 has no command, whether the B slave unit 30 is performing another process or not, the operation command area 300 is always present.
Are watching. When the master unit executes the 20th line in FIG. 6B, the command is an operation command to the stocker 600, the master unit 10 reads from and writes to the shared memory 15, and the stocker 600 shares the B slave unit 30. The memory 34 is read and written, and its operation is the same as the operation command to the robot described above.

In this embodiment, there are two slave units, a robot and a stocker, but it is possible to increase as many as possible within the range of the shared memory area of the master unit, and depending on the system configuration. , You may change the connection. The shared memory in the above embodiment is, for example, MKY28 (manufactured by Step Technica).

The shared memory has a plurality of banks inside and an access address register is built in each of the banks. FIG. 7 shows control of data transfer between memories.
The memory is a memory controller (MC14a, 14
b), this memory controller monitors a change in data of each bank of its own memory, and when there is a change, sends the data of the bank to the memory controller of the other party. As a result, the same data can be secured in the memories.

According to the control device described above, the following effects can be expected. A-1. When separating the master unit that controls the entire operation procedure from the automatic assembly component (called device), conventionally,
It is impossible to extend the communication between the master unit and the slave unit by the bus for a long time due to noise etc.Also, it is possible to route the motor power line, the encoder line, the signal line such as the sensor between the slave unit and the device, but the distance Therefore, there is a possibility that problems such as voltage drop may occur, and there is a restriction that the distance cannot be extended. However, by using the shared memory as described in the embodiment, there is an effect that it is possible to dispose the master unit and the slave unit at a distance from each other without lowering the reliability. A-2. Conventionally, a large number of wirings between the slave unit and the device, when replacing the device, had to be manually replaced, which was troublesome, but according to the above-mentioned embodiment,
The slave unit can be integrated into the device, and
There is an effect that only one or two signal lines need to be changed and the device can be easily replaced. If the slave unit is prepared according to devices of various specifications (differences in the number of axes, differences in capacity, etc.), a free configuration is possible. A-3. As a characteristic of the servo, the wiring between the device and the control unit may be cut artificially or by the robot itself.If the power line is cut, it falls in the gravity direction, or if the encoder line is cut. There is a risk of runaway and can be a serious accident. However, in the present embodiment, when the signal line between the master unit and the slave unit is broken, the command is not issued, and the device is stopped, which does not lead to a serious accident.

The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of a single device. Further, it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to the case where it is achieved by supplying a program to a system or an apparatus.

[0026]

As described above, according to the control device of the present invention, the first control unit and the second control unit can be freely separated by copying the data between the memories. In addition, a large number of wirings between them can be made short and can have a fixed length. Also, disconnection at that part will be reduced. Furthermore, when the number of constituent devices of the automatic machine is increased or changed, it is possible to easily add more and replace the slave unit.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a control device.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of an entire system.

FIG. 3A is a diagram showing a configuration of a ROM of a master unit.

FIG. 3B is a diagram showing a configuration of a RAM of a master unit.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a configuration of a ROM of a slave unit.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a configuration of a shared memory.

FIG. 6A is a flowchart showing a control procedure of the embodiment.

FIG. 6B is a flowchart showing the control procedure of the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a hardware configuration for controlling communication between memories.

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Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A control device for controlling an automatic device having at least one automatic device, the control device comprising: a first control unit for controlling an operation procedure of the automatic device; and the automatic device according to the operation procedure. And a second control unit for controlling the first control unit, the first control unit having a first memory, the second control unit having a second memory, the control device, The second control unit has means for copying by communication so that the content of the first memory and the content of the second memory are the same, and the second control unit is configured such that the data for the second control unit is the second data. A controller for an automatic device, characterized in that when in memory, the data is retrieved from a second memory. 2. The serial communication between the first memory and the second memory is carried out.
A control device for an automatic device according to the item. 3. The control device for an automatic device according to claim 2, wherein the same data is held at the same address between the first memory and the second memory. 4. The data communication between the first memory and the second memory is performed independently of the CPU provided in the control device. A control device for an automatic device according to the item. 5. The second control unit is connected to a servo motor and an encoder, and performs positioning control based on position information from the encoder according to an operation command from the first control unit. The control device for the automatic device according to claim 1. 6. The automatic device according to claim 1, wherein the data communicated between the two memories is a movement target position, an operation command, an operation speed, error information and servo parameters. Control device.