JPH0825367B2 - Hub positioning device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION <Industrial field of use> The present invention relates to a hub positioning device for automatically mounting a tire in an automobile assembly process.

<Problems to be Solved by Prior Art and Invention> In automating the assembly of an automobile, a device for automatically attaching a tire to a hub of the automobile is required.

This type of automatic tire mounting device includes a robot that positions a tire on a hub of an automobile and tightens a nut, a nut supply device that supplies the nut to the robot, and a tire supply device that supplies the tire. In this case, the hub of the vehicle must be in place for the robot to position the tire on the hub and screw the nut onto the hub bolt.

Generally, in an assembly line, an automobile is placed on a shuttle and transported, and a hub is positioned by pushing a lower arm of a suspension or the like from below by a lift device in a tire mounting pit. However, even if you lift a certain amount with the lift device, differences in vehicle types and individual differences,
Due to the steering angle and the like, the hub is not always in the same position, and as a result, it is expected that the robot cannot attach the tire to the hub.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus that measures the center position of a hub that has been positioned in advance and positions the hub. Is intended to be positioned.

<Means for Solving the Problems> A hub positioning device according to the present invention for achieving the above object is a tire automatic mounting device including a robot for positioning a tire on a hub of an automobile and tightening a nut. And a lift device that pushes up the suspension of the automobile at a position facing the head to position the hub, and the automobile that is disposed in the front-back direction of the vehicle body and is provided on the head and is pushed up by the lift device. By moving the head to the hub side to contact the hub surface of the hub to detect the inclination of the hub surface in the front-rear direction, and measuring the displacement difference between the pair of measuring elements. A face-to-face length measuring device that moves the head so that the displacement difference becomes zero and causes the head to face the hub surface;
A first movably provided in the head respectively so as to be movable in the vertical direction, and contacts the upper and lower portions of the circular outer peripheral surface of the hub so as to sandwich the upper and lower sides of the circular outer peripheral surface of the hub facing each other;
And a second measuring piece, a third measuring piece provided on the head so as to be movable in the lateral direction, and in contact with a side portion of a circular outer peripheral surface of the hub that faces the hub surface, and the first and second measuring pieces. And a center length measuring device for measuring the displacement amount of the third measuring piece to measure the rotation center position of the hub and aligning the center of the head with the rotation center position of the hub, and a center of rotation of the center of the head. And a hub bolt positioning plate that is rotatably supported by the head and has a center axis of rotation that coincides with the center of rotation of the hub when the head is directly facing the hub surface, and is attached to the hub bolt positioning plate. When the hub bolt positioning plate rotates, a positioning protrusion that comes into contact with the outer peripheral surface of the hub bolt of the hub, and the hub bolt positioning plate are arranged at a predetermined angular position over an angle range larger than the arrangement pitch interval of the hub bolts. Characterized in that comprises an actuator for driving rotation, up.

Further, in a hub in which an even number of hub bolts are evenly arranged in the circumferential direction, the measuring piece may be brought into contact with the outer peripheral surface of the hub bolt.

<Operation> First, the suspension of the automobile is pushed up by the lift device to position the hub. From this state, a pair of tracing stylus is brought into contact with the hub surface to measure the inclination of the hub surface in the front-rear direction, and the head is directly opposed to the hub surface based on the measurement result. Next, the center of the hub is measured by the first, second, and third measuring pieces, and the center of the head is aligned with the center of the hub based on the measurement result. Then, by moving the hub bolt positioning plate forward and drivingly rotating the hub bolt positioning plate by driving the actuator, the hub is rotated to a predetermined rotation position through the positioning protrusion and the hub bolt and stopped, and the positioning of the hub is completed.

Further, when the number of hub bolts is an even number, the first, second and third measuring pieces are brought into contact with the hub bolts to measure the hub center and position the hub in the same manner as described above.

<Example> Hereinafter, one example of the present invention will be specifically described with reference to the drawings.

First, an outline of an automatic tire mounting apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. 6 showing a plan view thereof. As shown in FIG. 6, this device is equipped with four automatic tire mounting devices corresponding to four tires on the front, rear, left and right of the vehicle.
The four automatic tire mounting devices 11 are equipped with front right and rear left tires in the first pit 13 provided on the assembly line, and front left and front right tires in the subsequent second bit 15. It is arranged so that. In addition, the reason why the tires on the diagonal line are attached at the same time is
This is to avoid problems caused by the interlocking of the left and right hubs when mounting the tire.

Each tire automatic mounting device 11 is a tire mounting robot 17,
Nut feeder 19, nut loader 21, nut robot 2
3. Has a tire supply device 25 and the like. Nut feeder 1
The reference numeral 9 has six nut storage portions 27 for storing different types of nuts in accordance with the six types of nuts handled in this assembly line, and supplies these nuts to a predetermined delivery position 29. The nut loader 21 uses a tire mounting robot 17 to mount nuts with the number of floats required to mount one tire on the hub at a time.
And a pedestal 31 having a plurality of nut support portions in the same relative positional relationship as the hub bolt. There are two types of the pedestal 31, one for four having four nut supporting portions and the other for five having five nut supporting portions, which can be selectively used according to the vehicle type. Further, the nut robot 23 grasps the nut at the delivery position 29 of the nut feeder 19 and places it on the receiving table 31 of the nut loader 21 in the required number. On the other hand, the tire supply device 25 supplies the tire loaded from a conveyor (not shown) to the tire mounting robot 17 in a predetermined direction.

The tire mounting robot 17 has a head 33 that is movable in the horizontal XY axis directions and the vertical Z axis directions and is rotatable in the C axis direction around the Z axis. The head 33 has a measuring / positioning unit 35.
And a tire mounting portion 37 are provided. The measuring / positioning portion 35 and the tire mounting portion 37 are of two types, that is, for four and for five, like the above-mentioned pedestal 31, and are arranged in opposition to each other. The measuring / positioning unit 35 measures the center of the hub for centering the tire mounting robot 17, and rotationally positions the hub so that the hub bolt is at a predetermined position. Further, the tire mounting portion 37 has a plurality of nut runners (not shown) having the same relative positional relationship as the hub bolt in the center thereof, and a tire gripping claw 39 on the outer periphery thereof.

In such a device, when installing the tire,
The body of the automobile is positioned at a predetermined position by the positioning device 41, and the hub is positioned by pushing up the lower arm of the suspension by the lift device 43. When the lower arm of the automobile is pushed up by the lift device 43, the hub is positioned in a state close to a running state (a substantially vertical state). Then, a tire mounting robot
After receiving the nut from the nut loader 21 into the nut runner of the tire mounting portion 37, the tire 17 faces the tire supply device 25 and grips the tire with the tire gripping claw 39. Next, align the measurement / positioning unit 35 directly with the hub, and mount the tire on the robot.
Perform centering of 17 and rotational positioning of the hub, then rotate the head 33 90 ° to align the tire mounting portion 37 with the hub, press the tire against the hub and screw the nut onto the hub bolt to mount the tire. I do.

Next, the measurement / positioning unit provided on the above-mentioned head 33
35 will be explained in detail. As described above, there are two types of measuring / positioning unit 35, one for four and the other for five, but here, description will be given for five.

FIG. 1 is a front view of the measuring / positioning unit 35, FIG. 2 is a side view thereof, FIG. 3 is a plan view of the same, and FIG.
IV-IV sectional drawing of a figure, and FIG. 5 are enlarged sectional views of a tracing stylus part.

As shown in FIGS. 1 to 5, the measurement / positioning unit 35 includes a support frame 45 having a box-shaped cross-sectional structure, and the support frame 45 is mounted on a substrate 47 attached to the head 33.
The support frame 45 is slidably supported in the front-rear direction on the substrate 47 via a linear guide 49, and is normally biased forward by a spring 51 and fixed to the front portion of the substrate 47. It is fixed by touching 53. That is, when an excessive force acts on the support frame 45 due to some abnormality, the support frame 45 is displaced against the spring 51, and an emergency stop of the tire mounting robot 17 is performed by detecting the displacement with the limit switch 55. It

An empty space is formed in the center of the support frame 45.
Slides up and down and left to surround this space on the front of 45
57, 59, 61 are fixed. Sliders 63 and 65 are vertically slidably mounted on the upper and lower slides 57 and 59, respectively, while sliders 63 and 65 are horizontally slidable on the left slide 61.
67 is installed. These sliders 63, 65, 67 are driven in respective sliding reciprocating directions by air cylinders (not shown) built in the sliding bases 57, 59, 61. Measuring blocks 69, 71, 73 are fixed to the sliders 63, 65, 67, respectively, and the circular outer peripheral surface of the hub H is attached to the tip ends of the measuring blocks 69, 71, 73 on the central side of the support frame 45. There are attached measuring pieces 75, 77, 79 which come into contact with.
Here, the circular outer circumferential surface of the hub H means a circumferential surface that is located close to the hub bolt and is concentric with the wheel rotation center, regardless of each name, for example, in a vehicle equipped with a drum brake. The outer peripheral surface of the brake drum corresponds to this.

Further, on the front surface of the support frame 45, linear length measuring devices 81, 83, 85 as central length measuring devices are attached corresponding to the respective sliders 63, 65, 67, and these detection rods 87, 89, 91 are attached. Brackets 93, 95, 97 protruding from the side of each measuring block 69, 71, 73
It is connected to.

Further, on the front surface of the support frame 45, a pair of measuring elements 99 for measuring the inclination of the hub H are arranged so as to project forward.
As shown in FIG. 5, the tracing stylus 99 is supported by the bracket 101 fixed to the support frame 45 in the front-rear direction (the left-right direction in FIG. 5) via the linear bush 103, and the spring
It is biased forward by 105. On the other hand, the bracket 101 is provided with a linear length measuring device 107 as a face-to-face length measuring device adjacent to the linear bush 103, and its detection rod 109 is engaged with a connecting plate 111 fixed to the tracing stylus 99. There is.

On the other hand, at the center of the support frame 45, the hub bolt positioning plate 11
3 is facing forward. As shown in FIG. 2, the support frame 45
A pedestal 115 is slidably supported in the front-rear direction by a linear guide 117 on the rear surface portion thereof, and an actuator 119 is mounted on the pedestal 115. As shown in FIG. Hub bolt positioning plate 11 to 121
3 is installed. The pedestal 115 has an air cylinder.
123 are connected to each other and are moved to the pedestal 115 in the front-rear direction (left-right direction in FIG. 4) by the operation of the air cylinder 123.

The hub bolt positioning plate 113 has a hub bolt B on its front surface.
While the actuator 119 rotates the hub bolt positioning plate 113 by a predetermined angle so that the positioning protrusion 125 moves in a predetermined angular range larger than the arrangement pitch interval of the hub bolts B, the actuator 119 can be brought into contact with the hub bolt B. It has become.

Next, the operation of the measuring / positioning unit 35 will be described. As described above, prior to mounting the tire, the measurement / positioning portion 35 is opposed to the hub H, and first the measurement / positioning portion 35 is directly opposed to the surface of the hub H. That is, when the measuring / positioning unit 35 is brought closer to the hub H, the probe 99 first comes into contact with the surface of the hub H. Here, if the surface of the hub H is parallel to the traveling direction of the automobile (the direction of the assembly line), the pair of probe 99 is pushed in by the same amount, but the hub H
If the surface of the pair is inclined, the displacement amounts of both the tracing styluses 99 are different from each other, and the output of the linear length measuring device 107 becomes different. In this case, by rotating the head 33 so that the output of the linear length measuring device 107 becomes the same, the measuring / positioning portion 35 can be directly faced to the surface of the hub H.

Then, the rotation center of the hub H is measured. To do this, first move the upper and lower sliders 63, 65 close to each other and
5,77 is brought into contact with the circular outer peripheral surface of the hub H, and the displacement amount between the center of the measuring / positioning portion 35 and the center of the hub H in the vertical direction from the output of each linear length measuring device 81,83 at that position. H
Determine the diameter of the circular outer peripheral surface of. Next, the vertical slider 63,65
After moving back, the left slider 67 is moved forward to bring the measuring piece 79 into contact with the circular outer peripheral surface of the hub H. From the output of the linear length measuring device 85 at that position and the diameter of the hub H obtained previously, The amount of displacement between the center of the horizontal measuring / positioning portion 35 and the center of the hub H is obtained. In this way, the center of rotation of the hub H is measured, and based on the result, the head 33 is moved so that the center of the measuring / positioning portion 35 and the center of the hub H coincide with each other.

Then, the hub H is rotated so that the hub bolt B is located at a predetermined rotation angle position. That is, the air cylinder 123 is operated to move the hub bolt positioning plate 113 forward so that the positioning protrusion 125 is projected to a position where the hub bolt B is engaged, and the actuator 119 is operated to rotate the hub bolt positioning plate 113. Then
Regardless of the position of the hub bolt B, the positioning protrusion 125 comes into contact with the outer peripheral surface of the hub bolt B during the rotation process of the hub bolt positioning plate 113, and the hub bolt positioning plate 113 rotates to cause the positioning protrusion 125 to rotate.
Presses the hub bolt B to rotate the hub H, and the hub bolt B is positioned at a predetermined rotation angle position. As described above, by locating the hub bolt B at a predetermined position, it becomes possible to subsequently mount the tire on the tire mounting portion 37 and mount the nut on the hub bolt.

When measuring the center of the hub H, the measuring pieces 75, 77, 79 are brought into contact with the circular outer peripheral surface of the measuring / positioning portion 35 for the above-mentioned five pieces. It is also possible to bring the measurement pieces 75, 77, 79 into contact with the hub bolt and measure the hub center. That is, in the four-piece measuring / positioning portion 35 of this embodiment, the measuring pieces 75, 77, 79 are configured to contact the outer peripheral surface of the hub bolt. in this case,
Since the four bub bolts are arranged at an angular interval of 90 °, the midpoint of the upper and lower measuring pieces 75 and 77 that abut on the hub bolt is the rotation of the hub H regardless of the angular position of the hub bolt. It is the same height as the center. Therefore, the hub center can be measured with the hub bolt as in the case of the circular outer peripheral surface of the hub H.

<Effects of the Invention> As described above in detail with reference to the embodiments, according to the present invention, by providing the lift device, the head is moved to the hub surface based on the result of one measurement by the probe. Since the center of the hub can be measured with the first, second and third measuring pieces in a state where the head is directly opposed to the hub surface, the head can be efficiently and extremely accurately. It is possible to match the center with the hub center. By correcting the position of these heads, the hub bolt positioning plate can be rotated to rotate the hub to a predetermined rotation position without difficulty through the positioning protrusion and the hub bolt. Further, the center of the hub can be accurately measured by applying the measuring pieces from the upper and lower sides and the three sides, and the hub can be attached to the tire by the robot based on this. Further, since the measuring piece exists only in three of the four directions of up, down, left and right, and the other one is open, the caliper and the like of the disc brake can be positioned there without interfering with it.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view of an apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
The figure is its side view, FIG. 3 is its plan view, FIG. 4 is a sectional view taken along line IV-IV of FIG. 3, FIG. 5 is an enlarged sectional view of the probe part, and FIG. 6 is the entire tire automatic mounting line. FIG. In the drawing, 11 is an automatic tire mounting device, 17 is a tire mounting robot, 19 is a nut feeder, 21 is a nut loader, 23 is a nut robot, 25 is a tire feeding device, 35 is a measuring / positioning unit, 37 is a tire mounting unit, and 75 is a tire mounting unit. Reference numerals 77, 79 are measuring pieces, 81, 83, 85 are linear length measuring instruments, 113 is a hub bolt positioning plate, 119 is an actuator, and 125 is a positioning protrusion.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An automatic tire mounting apparatus including a robot for positioning a tire on a hub of an automobile and tightening a nut, wherein the hub of the automobile is positioned by pushing up a suspension of the automobile at a position facing a head of the robot. A lift device, which is arranged in the front-rear direction of the vehicle body, is provided on the head, and is brought into contact with the hub surface of the hub by moving the head to the hub side of the automobile being pushed up by the lift device. A pair of measuring elements for detecting the inclination of the hub surface in the front-back direction, a displacement difference between the pair of measuring elements is measured, and the head is moved so that the displacement difference becomes zero, and the head is moved to the hub surface. A face-to-face length measuring device to be faced to each other, and each of the circles so as to sandwich the upper and lower sides of the circular outer peripheral surface of the hub, which is provided on the head so as to be vertically movable, and the hub face to face First contacting the upper and lower parts of the outer peripheral surface
A second measurement piece, a third measurement piece provided on the head so as to be movable in a lateral direction, and in contact with a side portion of a circular outer peripheral surface of the hub where the hub surface directly faces, and the first and second measurement pieces. And a center length measuring device for measuring the displacement amount of the third measuring piece to measure the rotation center position of the hub and aligning the center of the head with the rotation center position of the hub, and the center of rotation of the center of the head. And a hub bolt positioning plate that is rotatably supported by the head and has a center axis of rotation that coincides with the center of rotation of the hub when the head is directly facing the hub surface, and is attached to the hub bolt positioning plate. When the hub bolt positioning plate rotates, a positioning protrusion that comes into contact with the outer peripheral surface of the hub bolt of the hub and a predetermined angle of the hub bolt positioning plate over an angle range larger than the arrangement pitch interval of the hub bolts. Hub positioning device comprising an actuator for rotatably driven to the position, that equipped with. 2. An automatic tire mounting apparatus including a robot for positioning a tire and tightening a nut on a hub of an automobile having an even number of hub bolts arranged equidistantly in a circumferential direction, the device being opposed to a head of the robot. A lift device that pushes up the suspension of the automobile at a position to position the hub; and a hub device that is disposed in the front-rear direction of the vehicle body and that is provided on the head and that is pushed up by the lift device. By moving the head, a pair of gauge heads that come into contact with the hub surface of the hub to detect the front-back inclination of the hub surface, and a displacement difference between the pair of gauge heads are measured and the displacement difference becomes zero. And a facing length measuring device that moves the head to face the hub surface so that the head faces the hub surface, and the hub surface faces the hub surface movably in the vertical direction. First and second measuring pieces that come into contact with the outer peripheral surfaces of the hub bolts located at the uppermost and lowermost sides of the hub, and the outermost side of the hub that is provided in the head so as to be movable in the lateral direction and that the hub surface faces directly The third measurement piece that is in contact with the outer peripheral surface of the hub bolt located in one direction, and the displacement amounts of the first, second, and third measurement pieces are measured to measure the rotation center position of the hub, A center length measuring device for aligning the center of the head with the center of rotation, and a center length measuring device that is rotatably supported by the head with the center of the head as the center of rotation and that rotates when the head is directly facing the hub surface. A hub bolt positioning plate having a central axis of movement coinciding with the center of rotation of the hub, and a positioning member attached to the hub bolt positioning plate and abutting against the outer peripheral surface of the hub bolt of the hub by rotating the hub bolt positioning plate. A hub positioning device comprising: a protrusion; and an actuator that rotationally drives the hub bolt positioning plate to a predetermined angular position over an angular range larger than the hub bolt array pitch interval.