JPH07237106A - Remote control flaw repairing method and device therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable automatic flaw repairing of high reliability by in advance detecting a flaw position of a repair object material, conducting remote control flaw repair wherein the flaw repair is carried out by a flaw repairing device mounted on a mobile carriage, and generating an alarm signal when an allowable value in a flaw repair condition is exceeded. CONSTITUTION:In the case of flaw repair of the steel pipe interior, at first, actual object marking for indicating a visual observation flaw inspection and a flaw position is conducted by a flaw inspector, then a mark 7 (an enclosing line and numeral) is photographed by an image pickup camera 3, and a position of the mark 7 on three- dimentional coordinate axes is calculated by an image processing device. Three- dimentional operation pattern information of a flaw repairing tool 20 is converted by a control device into a speed command and position command for each robot drive shaft, and in accordance with the command a robot 2 is driven to remove a flaw furnished with the mark 7. During flaw repairing, reaction force of the tool 20 due to contact with a steel pipe 10 and a locus of each path of the tool 20 are monitored, and in the case where an error relative to a selected three-dimentional operation pattern exceeds an allowable value, an alarm is generated.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for removing a flaw such as a steel material by attaching a maintenance tool to the hand of a programmable manipulator such as a robot. Automatic movement of a trolley equipped with a removal device, execution of automatic flaw maintenance operation, and monitoring of the maintenance operation status, and when a preset program operation alone does not achieve the expected flaw removal quality, a warning is issued to operate The present invention relates to a remote operation flaw care method and apparatus for notifying a person of this fact, stopping the automatic flaw care operation, and controlling the manipulator according to an instruction from an operator from a remote operation command device to execute the maintenance operation.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For example, in manufacturing steel materials, flaws are generated in the manufacturing process. In order to avoid the expansion of flaws in the subsequent manufacturing process (intermediate maintenance) and to ensure the quality of the final product (finishing maintenance), many people carry out flaw removal maintenance. Generally, grinders, hand mills, etc. are used as the maintenance tools for these, but the mechanization and automation have been earnestly studied as a representative work of so-called 3K work in a work where the working environment is not good in addition to dust and noise. There is.

However, with the current technology, it is difficult to compactly integrate flaw inspection, automatic detection and flaw maintenance,
In most cases, the inspection process and the maintenance process are divided, and when a flaw is found in the inspection, the actual mark is made at the flaw position, and in the next flaw removal process, the flaw is removed based on the actual marking. In particular, when a flaw inspection is performed by a visual inspection of a person, this maintenance method is often used, and the actual condition of the flaw maintenance is that the flaw maintenance is manually performed.

In order to make these tasks comfortable, the invention of a remote control robot using image information in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 60-29291 and a correction operation by manual remote control in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 60-33608 are disclosed. The invention of an automatic driving robot provided with a robot, the invention of remote detection by a moving device and a remote-controlled manipulator disclosed in JP-A-62-4580, and JP-A-3-
The invention of the robot control grinder application disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 251359, and as a similar technique, JP-A-63-63
Japanese Patent No. 146 discloses an invention directed to rust removal and painting, in which a surface is photographed to determine a position requiring maintenance and the degree of damage.

[0005]

However, in order to reduce the burden on the operator in these works, it is desirable to increase the automation rate as much as possible. However, in the work in which the target work changes in various ways such as flaw maintenance, It is difficult to fully automate, and it depends on human care after all.

In view of the above situation, the present invention aims to automate what can be partially automated, to minimize flaw maintenance by remote control, and to perform remote maintenance by the operator only when necessary. Is.

[0007]

Therefore, as a means for increasing the automation rate, the present invention makes it possible to automatically run and stop the flaw maintenance device by flaw position detection or flaw position command, and select a flaw maintenance pattern. Start the automatic flaw maintenance program, and at this time, in the case of special flaws that cannot be handled by the preset flaw maintenance pattern, or when performing the flaw maintenance, monitor the flaw maintenance quality and compare it with the preset tolerance value. Only when it is judged that the degree of achievement of maintenance is poor and manual remote control is required, a warning is issued and manual remote control maintenance is performed. This reduces the load on the operator.

That is, the method of the present invention is a remote-controlled flaw care method in which the flaw position of a material to be cared for is detected in advance, and the flaw care device mounted on the movable carriage is used to perform the flaw care of the position. Based on the relative position information with the moving carriage, the moving carriage control device controls the movement of the moving carriage, and furthermore, automatic flaw maintenance is performed based on the flaw information acquired by the operation control device, and the flaw maintenance status is monitored. Remote operation characterized by capturing data, and when the monitoring data exceeds the predetermined allowable value of the defect maintenance condition, a warning signal is issued, the automatic defect maintenance operation is stopped, and manual operation is switched to remote operation defect maintenance. This is the method for cleaning the defects.

Further, the apparatus of the present invention is a remote-controlled flaw care device which detects a flaw position of a material to be cared for in advance and performs a flaw care of the flaw position with a flaw care device mounted on a moving carriage. Based on the relative position information with respect to the mobile carriage, a mobile carriage control device that controls the movement of the mobile carriage, and an execution control of the flaw maintenance of the flaw maintenance device based on the captured flaw information, to perform the flaw maintenance situation. While monitoring, an operation control device that issues a warning signal when the monitoring data exceeds a predetermined flaw maintenance condition allowable value, an operation panel that displays the warning content based on the warning signal, and a warning was issued. In this case, the remote operation flaw maintenance device is characterized by comprising a manual remote operation command device for manually sending a command input to the motion control device.

[0010]

The automatic flaw maintenance is performed by the remote-controlled flaw maintenance in which the flaw position of the material to be maintained is detected in advance and the flaw maintenance device mounted on the moving carriage repairs the flaw. In this automatic automatic flaw maintenance, the monitoring data of the flaw maintenance situation is taken in, and when this exceeds the predetermined allowable value of the flaw maintenance situation, a warning signal is issued,
The reliability of automatic flaw maintenance is improved. That is, since the automatic flaw maintenance need only be limited to situations where the reliability is high, highly reliable automatic flaw maintenance can be realized.

When a manual intervention is required, the operator is automatically notified of it, and the automatic flaw maintenance operation is stopped and the manual remote operation flaw maintenance is switched to. Therefore, if the operator immediately starts the manual operation. Often, the operator does not need to switch from automatic to manual.
Therefore, the load of manual work in the flaw removal process is significantly reduced. This is significant not only in labor saving but also in securing personnel.

[0012]

EXAMPLES In order to facilitate understanding below, a flaw inspector made a visual flaw inspection and an actual marking 7 indicating a flaw position, for the purpose of removing flaws on the inner surface of a steel pipe, which is an embodiment of the present invention. The marking 7 is automatically detected by image processing,
A remote-controlled flaw care method and apparatus for automatically treating flaws in the actual marking 7 will be described with reference to the drawings.

In FIGS. 1 and 2, a flaw is detected in the previous inspection process, and a flaw position requiring maintenance is marked with, for example, an encircling mark to indicate a flaw removal range, and a numeral to indicate a flaw type. When the rubbed steel pipe 10 is sent to the maintenance process, the marking 31 is marked by the camera 31.
The (circle line + number) is photographed, and the image information is transmitted to the image processing device 32. In the image processing device 32, the moving device 1 is determined based on the position and attitude of the moving device 1 with respect to the steel pipe 10, the position and attitude of the camera 31 with respect to the moving device 1, and the position of the marking 7 on the photographing screen.
Calculate the position of the marking 7 on the dimensional coordinate axes, and
The information of the king 7 is decoded, and the position and the posture of the flaw maintenance tool 20 attached to the robot 2 on the three-dimensional coordinate axes are constantly calculated (tracked), and the robot 2 (the flaw maintenance tool 2
The position of the carriage of the moving device 1 with respect to the steel pipe 10 is controlled so that the marking 7 enters the flaw removal operation area of 0).

Further, the information of the marking 7 (encircling line + numerals) is matched with an information table in which the speed and posture are predetermined, and the three-dimensional operation pattern of the flaw maintenance tool 20 (the movement locus on the three-dimensional coordinate axes). And the speed at each part of the trajectory) is selected and edited. The edited three-dimensional operation pattern information is converted by the controller 42 of the robot 2 into a speed command and a position command for each robot drive axis to drive the robot 2. That is, the flaw with the marking 7 is automatically maintained (removed).

The information of the marking 7 (encircling line + numerals) cannot be matched with the information table (the information table does not have a flaw maintenance pattern that matches the encircling line and / or numbers of the marking 7 or In the case of partial editing of the entire pattern), it is judged that automatic maintenance is not possible and a warning is issued as a kind of exceeding the allowable value, and flaw maintenance in the manual maintenance mode is carried out.

The steel pipe 1 of the maintenance tool 20 is in execution during automatic flaw maintenance in a predetermined pattern existing in the information table.
The contact reaction force with 0 and the locus of each pass of the maintenance tool 20 are monitored, and the error between the selected reaction force and the selected three-dimensional operation pattern is constantly monitored by the monitoring and comparing operation unit 43 with the allowable value in the control device 42. If the error exceeds the allowable value by comparison, it is decided whether to continue the automatic flaw removal according to the degree of importance, and if it cannot be continued, the automatic flaw removal operation is stopped and a warning is issued. , Carry out flaws in manual maintenance mode. That is, the operator is informed of these, and the operator remotely judges the robot 20 by the manual remote control command device 5 while watching the tool 20 of the robot 2 and the condition of the defect by the camera 3, and manually finishes the defect repair.

It should be noted that the generated excess of the allowable value is slight,
Even when the automatic flaw removal is continued, the operator is informed as a warning that the allowable value excess has occurred, and the operator confirms the situation during or after the maintenance to judge the quality of the maintenance. At this time, it is also effective to take an image record of the condition of the flaw maintenance part periodically and / or to take and store it whenever a warning occurs, and take it out as necessary and use it as auxiliary information for the judgment made by the operator. Is.

Since the present invention is premised on the fact that the operator can perform auxiliary maintenance by remote control, a visual information presentation device for remote control is indispensable. In this embodiment, remote control is provided. By using the visual information presentation device for maintenance together with the image information reading device for the actual defect marking 7, the utilization efficiency of the constituent devices is improved.

The information fetched for the automatic flaw removal operation status determination is the value of the force detector of the robot and / or the position and / or the posture of the robot hand, for example, the marking of the encircling line and the number or the number of patterns or lines. Each is compared with a predetermined allowable value according to the type and size of the flaw indicated by, for example. For example, if the part other than the welded part (base material of the steel pipe) has scratches, the predetermined allowable value is the cut amount from the initial contact, that is, the grinding depth (in the case of multiple passes, the integral Amount) of the base metal wall thickness of 0.
This is monitored within 5% (residual thickness compensation), and the relationship between the movement amount X (mm) in the grinding width direction and the cutting depth δ _X (mm) is defined as δ _X <(150-X) as a maintenance locus. ² · δ _max δ _max : As the maximum cutting depth (mm), while controlling the movement trajectory of the hand tool 20 of the maintenance robot 2, by monitoring its performance, smooth flaw maintenance is achieved.

If the weld is to be cared for, the maximum depth of cut is monitored as (50% -α) α: margin ratio of the base metal wall thickness.

In addition, when the robot is used to perform flaw maintenance with the disc grinder, the pressing angle of the disc is monitored and, for example, when the base material is being maintained, an alarm signal is issued when the pressing angle exceeds 30 degrees. Monitor the allowable angle and variation angle according to the location and shape of defects such as material and weld bead. Furthermore, regarding the pressing force, a pressing pattern and an allowable fluctuation range corresponding to the location and shape of the flaw are provided and monitored.

For detecting the force of the robot, a force detector may be attached to the hand of the robot, or the force can be calculated from the motor current for driving the robot. Further, the position and orientation of the robot hand may be detected by attaching a position or orientation detector to the robot hand or may be calculated from the rotation angle of the motor for driving the robot.

In this way, standards are set for various types and sizes of flaws, and the actual value and the permissible value during the maintenance of the flaws are compared with each other in accordance with the flaws actually generated.

In presenting visual information to the operator during manual remote control, the more precise the work, the more important the sense of depth becomes.
It is preferably a stereoscopic vision device. It is also possible to superimpose work assistance information for workers, such as information on the extent and depth of maintenance of defects and robot movements, on an image display device that presents visual information using computer graphics, and also use it as work support. If it is effective and the manual remote control command device is required to command a complicated motion to the robot, it is preferable to use a human arm type master arm rather than the joystick type shown in this embodiment.

Further, in this embodiment, the flaw inspection is visually conducted by a person, and a system is provided in which the flaw-repairing material is directly repaired by reading the marking directly on the flaw-repairing material where the flaw-repairing is required.
If the system is such that the defect inspection is automatically performed and the information on the position for cleaning the defect and the size of the defect removal area is directly passed from the defect inspection system to the defect maintenance control device, the movement control by the image processing in this embodiment is performed. Instead of selecting the maintenance pattern, and using some or all of the information directly passed from the defect inspection system, the movement control and the defect maintenance pattern selection may be performed.
It goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to the maintenance of flaws after the automatic flaw inspection.

[0026]

As described above, according to the present invention, in a work for detecting a flaw-necessity-required portion in a flaw-inspection step and for flaw-repairing it in a subsequent step, the movement and the movement of the flaw-repairing quality with high reliability can be performed. Part of the flaw removal device can be automated and 3K
It is possible to significantly reduce the burden of manual work for flaw removal, which can be said to be the representative of work, and it is easy to realize because it can be partially automated.
The effect is great not only in labor saving but also in securing personnel.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an external appearance of an embodiment of the present invention, in which a steel tube 10 for flaw maintenance shows a central longitudinal section.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an outline of robot control executed by an image processing device and a robot control device in a control panel 4.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an outline of conventional robot control in automatic flaw care.

[Explanation of symbols]

1: Moving device (moving carriage) 2: Robot 3: Imaging camera 4: Control panel (integrated panel of 41-43 and operation panel) 5: Manual remote operation command device 6: Monitor TV 7: Defect position marking 10: Care Material (Steel pipe) 31: Imaging camera main body 32: Camera image processing device 41: Mobile trolley control device 42: Motion control device 43: Monitoring comparison calculation unit

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued Front Page (72) Inventor Eiichi Yamashita 1 Kimitsu, Kimitsu City Nippon Steel Corporation Kimitsu Steel Works

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A remote-controlled flaw care method in which a flaw position of a material to be cared for is detected in advance and a flaw care device mounted on the moving carriage repairs the flaw at a relative position between the flaw position and the moving carriage. Based on the position information, the mobile carriage control device controls the movement of the mobile carriage,
Furthermore, automatic flaw maintenance is performed based on the flaw information captured by the motion control device, the monitoring data of the flaw maintenance status is taken in, and a warning signal is sent when the monitoring data exceeds the predetermined allowable value of the flaw maintenance status. A remote-controlled flaw care method characterized in that the automatic flaw-cleaning operation is triggered to switch to remote-controlled flaw maintenance by manual operation. 2. A remote control flaw handling device for detecting a flaw position of a material to be cared for in advance and performing a flaw maintenance at the position by a flaw maintenance device mounted on the moving carriage, wherein the flaw position and the moving carriage are Based on the relative position information, the mobile carriage control device that controls the movement of the mobile carriage, and the execution control of the flaw maintenance of the flaw maintenance device based on the captured flaw information, and is determined in advance while monitoring the flaw maintenance status. When the monitoring data exceeds the allowable value of the maintenance condition, the operation control device that issues a warning signal, the operation panel that displays the warning content based on the warning signal, and the operation control device when the warning is issued. Remote operation flaw maintenance device characterized by comprising a manual remote operation command device for manually sending the command input of.