JPH09262784A - Arranging device and method for transparent work - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an automatic arranging device for regularly arranging a transparent work such as a crystal element plate on a mask tray. SOLUTION: A work 40 is arranged on a glossy black colored work supply tray 36, light is irradiated on it from an oblique direction by a ring light 35, the edge portion of it is shined by giving irregular reflection thereto, the image thereof is taken in by a CCD camera 30 and processed by a computer, and regularly arranged on a mask tray 47 by a robot 12 based on the image processed data.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for arranging transparent works, and more particularly to an apparatus and method for arranging transparent works at predetermined positions.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Crystal oscillators are widely used in various electronic devices. For example, a crystal oscillator is incorporated in a mobile phone, and an oscillation output of a predetermined frequency is taken out by such a crystal oscillator.

The crystal blank used in such a crystal oscillator has a thickness of 20 to several tens of μm and is composed of a very thin transparent plate. Such a crystal blank is processed into a substantially rectangular shape having a certain size, for example, 3 × 5 mm, and then washed, and then packed into a predetermined number of sheets, for example, 80 sheets, as a unit, and is supplied to a subsequent process.

In a subsequent process, electrodes are formed by gold plating on the surface of the crystal blank and both surfaces thereof. At this time, the edge portion is not plated with gold and is arranged and housed in a tray-shaped carrier having a mask function so that the electrodes on both sides are not electrically connected to each other. Conventionally, an operator manually stores the crystal blanks in the carrier while visually deciding them on the tray.

[0005]

The crystal blank is composed of a transparent plate, and is not only small in size but also very thin as described above, it is difficult to see with the naked eye, and when the crystal blank is handled by tweezers. Accidents in which the base plate was chipped or cracked were likely to occur, which required a high degree of skill. For this reason, there has been a strong demand for automation of the work of storing the crystal blanks in the tray.

That is, the work of visually recognizing the work of the crystal blank, arranging the work on the tray with tweezers and storing the work requires a considerable amount of skill because an extremely thin and transparent work must be handled. . Moreover, such a difficult-to-handle work had to be inserted into the carrier without cracks or chips. Therefore, the eyes are easily tired to handle things that are difficult to see, and the work has to be repeated continuously, which is a very demanding work for the body.

Even if an attempt is made to automate such work,
Since the target work, that is, the crystal blank is not only very thin, but also transparent, it is impossible to perform image processing, and for this reason the automatic arrangement work by the robot is hindered.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an arranging device for automatically arranging a transparent work at a predetermined position and a transparent work at a predetermined position. It is intended to provide an array method.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is an apparatus for arranging transparent works at predetermined positions, and an illuminating means for irradiating the transparent work with light from an oblique direction, and an illuminating light by the illuminating means. Image capturing means for capturing an image of a shining edge of the work by diffuse reflection of the workpiece, image processing means for processing an image of the edge of the work captured by the image capturing means, and moving the work to a predetermined array position. The present invention relates to a transparent work arranging device that includes a moving means for arranging and a control means for controlling the moving means based on a signal from the image processing means.

The irradiation angle of the illumination light by the illumination means may be in the range of 10 to 60 ° with respect to the horizontal direction.

It is possible to arrange only the image-processed edge images of the work within a predetermined range at predetermined positions.

The transparent work may be a crystal blank that constitutes a crystal oscillator.

The invention relating to the method is such that the transparent work is irradiated with illumination light from an oblique direction to illuminate the edge, an image of the work is obtained by the reflected light of the edge portion, and the image of the work is processed. The present invention relates to a transparent work arranging method, which comprises supplying image-processed data to a control means, and controlling the control means based on the data to arrange the work at a predetermined position.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows an automatic arranging device for transparent quartz crystal plates according to an embodiment of the present invention.
This apparatus includes a stage 10. An X-axis direction moving robot 11 is arranged on the stage 10 along its long side direction, and a Y-axis direction moving robot 12 is mounted on the X-axis direction moving robot 11 so as to be orthogonal to the robot 11. There is. X-axis direction mobile robot 11 and Y
The axial mobile robot 12 has feed screws 13 and 14 respectively.
In addition, motors 15 and 16 are attached to the ends of the feed screws 13 and 14, respectively.

On the Y-axis direction mobile robot 12, a movable table 2 is provided.
0 is attached. A moving unit 21 is attached to the lower surface of the moving table 20. Mobile unit 21
Is for moving a crystal blank to be described later to a predetermined position, and a pair of vacuum heads 23 and 24 forming a predetermined angle are attached in a V shape. The pair of vacuum heads 23 and 24 are moved alternately. In the state shown in FIG. 2, the vacuum head 23 is vertical, and the heads 23 are arranged to arrange the crystal blanks. There is. On the other hand, when the crystal head is lifted by the vacuum head 24, the vacuum head 23 turns to the upper right as shown by the chain line.

A θ-axis motor 25 is housed inside the moving table 20. The motor 25 is for rotating the moving unit 21 about its axis. Further, a Z-axis motor 26 is arranged on the moving table 20, and the motor 26 moves the moving table 20 up and down with respect to the Y-axis direction mobile robot 12 via a Z-axis feed screw 27. ing.

A mounting rail 28 is vertically mounted on the tip of the moving table 20.
A bracket 29 is attached to the. A CCD camera 30 for capturing an image is held on the front end side of the bracket 29. The CCD camera 30 has a vertical optical axis, and a close-up lens 31 is attached below the optical axis. The image of the crystal blank is captured through the close-up lens 31.

Further, a ring light 35 is held on the movable table 20 via a pair of left and right arms 34. As shown in FIGS. 2 to 4, the ring light 35 irradiates a work 40 made of a quartz crystal plate supplied by a work supply tray 36 made of a plastic plate from an oblique direction, whereby the edge portion of the side end of the work 40 is irradiated. Is diffusely reflected so that an image can be captured by the CCD camera 30.

Next, the control system of such an array device will be described. As shown in FIG. 5, the image captured by the CCD camera 30 is input to the image processing computer 43. And this computer 4
The drive control circuit 44 constituting the controller of the robot is controlled by 3. The drive control circuit 44 includes a motor 15 in the X-axis direction, a motor 16 in the Y-axis direction,
The motor 26 in the Z-axis direction and the motor 25 in the θ-axis direction are respectively controlled, and a combination of the control of these motors is used to form the work 4 made of a transparent quartz crystal plate.
0s are arranged in a predetermined position.

As shown in FIG. 6, the quartz crystal plate 40 is made of a transparent plate having a substantially rectangular shape and its corner portion having an arc shape, and the long side thereof has a length of 4.0 mm. The length of the short side is 3.0 mm, and the radius of curvature of the corner is 1.5 mm. In addition, the thickness here is a value of 30 to 40 μm.

The crystal blanks 40 are arranged in the mask tray 47 shown in FIG. The mask tray 47 includes a support plate 48, a lower plate 49, and an intermediate plate 5 from the lower side.
0, the upper plate 51 has a four-layer structure. And the upper plate 51
The workpieces 40 are arranged in the holding holes 53 of the middle plate 50 of the mask tray 47 in the state in which the workpieces 40 are removed. Then, after this, the upper plate 51 is attached.

The reason why the crystal element plate 40 is housed in the mask tray 47 is that electrodes are formed on both sides of the crystal element plate 40 by plating. That is, as shown in FIG. 8, when the support plate 48 is removed, the upper and lower surfaces of the crystal element plate 40 housed in the mask tray 47 are the exposure opening 54 of the upper plate 51 and the lower plate 4, respectively.
It is exposed through the exposure opening 55 of 9. Therefore, by performing the plating treatment in such a state, electrodes 57 and 58 made of a gold plating layer are formed on the upper and lower surfaces of the quartz crystal plate 40, respectively, as shown in FIGS. 8 and 9. After this, these gold-plated layers 57, 58
The lead wires 59 and 60 are connected to.

Next, the operation of arranging the works 40 made of quartz crystal plates by such an arranging device will be described.
As described above, this device is provided on the stage 10 with the work supply unit 3
6 and the mask tray 47 are arranged, the X-axis direction moving robot 11 and the Y-axis direction moving robot 12 are mounted, and the crystal blank plate 40 supplied by the work supply tray 36 is placed on the mask tray 47. It is designed to be arranged.

The work supply tray 36 is made of a conductive plastic plate, and its upper surface is black and has a mirror surface. 800-10 on such a tray 36
00 workpieces 40 are supplied in a loose shape. Here, two work supply trays 36 are arranged on the stage 10, and one work supply tray 36 is provided.
Is replaced with the other work supply tray 36, and the empty tray 36 is replaced with a new tray during this time, thereby eliminating the loss time.

The mask trays 47, in which the works 40 are arranged in an aligned state, are arranged on the stage 10 in such a manner that five mask trays 47 are arranged in each row and a total of 10 mask trays are arranged in two rows. Each tray 47 has a structure as shown in FIG. 7, and 6 × 14 blank plates 40 are arranged in one tray 47. Moreover, the suction means for arranging the works 40 on the tray 47 is a pair of vacuum heads 23, 2.
4 and are used alternately so that the takt time is minimized.

An outline of the arrangement operation of the works 40 will be described. The moving table 20 is moved by the X-axis direction moving robot 11 and the Y-axis direction moving robot 12, and the image capturing camera 30 is connected to the pair of work supply trays 36. Move to the upper part of one of the predetermined positions, and at this position, the tray 3
The image of the work 40 on 6 is captured. At this time, as shown in FIG. 4, the ring light 35 irradiates the quartz crystal plate 40 with light from an oblique direction, thereby illuminating the edge portion on the outer peripheral side of the crystal plate 40, and the work 40 having a minute dimension.
The outline of the image is captured by the CCD camera 30 through the close-up lens 31. This operation is performed for all the works 40 within the field of view, and the data is sent to the computer 43.

The computer 43 processes the image signal relating to the work 40 taken in by the CCD camera 30, and at the same time, the work 40 having no defect is vacuumed by the vacuum head 2.
The drive control circuit 44 is controlled to pick up by 3, 24. In response to this, the drive control circuit 44 drives the X-axis direction moving robot 11 and the Y-axis direction moving robot 12 by the motors 15 and 16, respectively, and moves the vacuum head 23 to the upper part of the work 40 to be conveyed.
After that, the Z-axis motor 26 is driven to lower the vacuum head 23, and the θ-axis motor 25 corrects the rotation angle of the vacuum head 23 according to the orientation of the workpiece 40.

The vacuum head 23 lowered to a predetermined position vacuum-sucks the work 40, and in this state, the Z-axis motor 26 raises the moving unit 21 which holds the vacuum head 23 by suction at its tip. Next, the vacuum heads 23 and 24 are exchanged, and the X-axis direction,
Positioning is performed in the Y-axis direction and the θ-axis direction, the vacuum head 24 is lowered again, and another workpiece 40 is vacuum-sucked. After that, the moving unit 21 is raised by the Z-axis motor 26. And after this, again X-axis motor 1
5 and the Y-axis motor 16 move the robot in the X-axis direction 1
1 and the Y-axis direction moving robot 12 are operated, and movement in the Z-axis direction is performed by the Z-axis motor 26 and θ.
The rotation in the axial direction is performed by the θ-axis motor 25, and the works 40 held by the vacuum heads 23 and 24 are stored in the holding holes 53 of the intermediate plate 50 on the mask tray 47 in the correct posture.

By repeating this operation, it becomes possible to correctly arrange the quartz crystal plates 40 supplied by the work supply tray 36 in separate states in the holding holes 53 of the middle plate 50 of the mask tray 47. When it is full, the mask tray 47 is ejected from the stage 10 and the work 40 is arranged on the empty tray.

A major feature of the arrangement device according to the present embodiment is that the outer shape of the work 40 is captured as an image by irradiating the work 40 with light from a diagonal direction by the ring light 35. At this time, the irradiation angle of light with respect to the work 40 and the angle θ (see FIG. 4) with respect to the horizontal direction may be in the range of 10 to 60 °. More preferably, it is in the range of 20 to 45 ° and θ is about 30 °.
In the case of, the clearest image can be obtained. Therefore, the work 40
The ring light 35 is adjusted in advance to the correct height so that the edge portion of the light will be diffused and reflected.

The image thus obtained by the illumination of the ring light 35 is captured by the CCD camera 30. FIG. 13 shows an image obtained by the CCD camera 30.

Such an image is first subjected to gray processing by the computer 43 and converted into an image as shown in FIG. That is, the contour portion of the work 40 is more clearly floated by the gray processing.

Thereafter, the computer 43 inverts black and white to convert the image shown in FIG. 14 into the image shown in FIG. The contour portion of the work 40 is emphasized by such conversion by inverting black and white.

Further, the computer 43 performs image processing so that the inside portion of the contour of the work 40 is inverted to white and the other portions are inverted to black. As a result, only the portion corresponding to the work 40 is converted into a white image as shown in FIG.

After that, the computer 43 obtains the area of the image corresponding to each work 40, and extracts only those which reach a certain area. Those that have not reached a certain area,
Remove it as it may be missing or missing. FIG. 18 shows an image thus extracted.

That is, in the actual work, since the crystal element plate 40 is supplied in bulk by the work supply tray 36, the works 40 may be overlapped, chipped, or cracked. Therefore, the contour of the workpiece 40 is made smaller than the actual contour of the workpiece 40, its area is determined, and only the passed ones are extracted and arranged on the mask tray 47.

FIG. 11 is a flow chart showing the image processing operation of the computer 43. The computer 43 takes in an image, binarizes it, and inverts it.

After this, the labeling and the labeling count are acquired for the images corresponding to the respective works 40. Then, the center of gravity of each label image is obtained, and then the area of the label image is obtained. After this, the label with the largest area is removed, which removes the background.

After that, with respect to each of the labeled images of the workpieces, a workpiece having a reference area of 0.8 times or more and a reference area of 1.2 times or less is selected, and such workpieces are counted. , The label number to be processed corresponding to such a work is stored. Next, the barycentric position of the image of the work having the label number to be processed in this way is held, then the principal axis of inertia of the image of the work having such a label number is obtained, and the principal axis of inertia is stored. The positions in the X and Y directions are determined based on the information of the center of gravity, and the θ direction is controlled based on the information of the principal axis of inertia. Such an operation is executed a number of times equal to the label count.

FIG. 12 shows a flow chart for the secondary processing by the computer 43, that is, the control for the angle correction and the position correction. One image of the label to be processed is extracted and stored as the first binary value. Add images. This is to remove noise and close the holes.
After that, the long edge is detected from the information on the position of the center of gravity and the principal axis of inertia. Then calculate the edge angle,
Further, the length of the image of the label in the X-axis direction and the length in the Y-axis direction are calculated by detecting the edge of the short side.

When the difference between the length of the work in the X-axis direction (reference value) and the length of the image of the label in the X-axis direction is 70 μm or less, the length of the work in the Y-axis direction (reference value) is further increased. And whether the difference in the Y-axis direction length between the label image and the label image is 105 μm or more.
If it is m or less, the inner circumference of the label is checked to check whether or not the work 40 of the label has a defect. After this, the center correction of each work 40 is calculated. As a result, secondary processing is performed.

As described above, in the present embodiment, not only the size of the quartz crystal plate 40 is very small, but also it is easy to be charged with static electricity and it is ultra-lightweight. Therefore, the conductive plastic containing carbon powder is used. A work supply tray 36 made of a plate is used, and a black glossy surface is used in consideration of the ease of capturing an image by light irradiation. The ring light 35 irradiates the quartz crystal plate 40 with light, and the edge portion of the work 40 is diffusely reflected to extract an image of a stabilized shape. If the workpieces 40 overlap with each other even a little, chips or cracks occur. Therefore, the computer 43 performs a process of reducing the external shape taken by the image processing so that the overlapped workpieces 40 or chips are missing. The work 40 is not taken out.

Therefore, according to such an automatic arrangement of the quartz crystal plates 40, the quartz crystal plates 40, which are difficult to handle, can be arranged automatically by image processing, and a great labor saving can be realized. , It becomes possible to replace the tough work with automation by machines. Further, by preventing the work 40 from cracking or chipping, the quality is stabilized.

[0044]

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY As described above, according to the present invention, the transparent work is irradiated with the illumination light from an oblique direction to illuminate the edge, and the light of the edge is reflected to obtain an image of the work. The image is processed, the image-processed data is supplied to the control means, and the control means controls the data on the basis of this data so that the workpieces are arranged at predetermined positions.

Therefore, it becomes possible to automate the work of arranging the transparent works. Further, it is possible to prevent the overlapping work pieces from being taken out by performing the image processing, or it is possible to enhance the reliability of the work arrangement by eliminating the defective work pieces.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing the overall configuration of an array device.

FIG. 2 is a front view of a main part of the array device.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a main part of the image capturing device.

FIG. 4 is a longitudinal sectional view of a main part showing an image capturing operation.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a control system of the array device.

FIG. 6 is a plan view of a work made of a quartz crystal plate.

FIG. 7 is an exploded perspective view of a mask tray.

FIG. 8 is a vertical cross-sectional view of a quartz crystal plate held by a mask tray.

FIG. 9 is a perspective view of a quartz crystal plate on which electrodes are formed by plating.

FIG. 10 is a perspective view of a quartz crystal plate in which lead wires are connected to electrodes.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing an operation of image processing.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing the operation of image processing.

FIG. 13 is a plan view of the captured image.

FIG. 14 is a plan view of the processed image.

FIG. 15 is a plan view of the processed image.

FIG. 16 is a plan view of the processed image. .

FIG. 17 is a plan view of the captured image.

FIG. 18 is a plan view of the processed image.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 ... stage, 11 ... X-axis direction mobile robot, 1
2 ... Y-axis direction mobile robot, 13 ... Feed screw (X
Axis), 14 ... Feed screw (Y axis), 15 ... Motor (X
Axis), 16 ... Motor (Y-axis), 20 ...
... Mobile unit, 23, 24 ... Vacuum head,
25: Motor (θ axis), 26: Motor (Z axis), 2
7 ... Feed screw (Z-axis), 28 ... Mounting rail, 29
Bracket, 30 CCD camera, 31 close-up lens (optical system), 34 arm, 35 ring light, 36 plastic plate (work supply tray),
40 ... work (crystal plate), 43 ... computer,
44 ... drive control circuit (controller), 47 ... mask tray, 48 ... support plate, 49 ... lower plate, 50 ... middle plate, 51 ... upper plate, 53 ... holding holes, 54, 55 ... Exposure openings 57, 58 Gold plating layer (electrode) 59,
60 ... Lead wire

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. An apparatus for arranging a transparent work at a predetermined position, wherein the transparent work is illuminated with light from an oblique direction, and the work shines due to irregular reflection of illumination light by the illumination means. Image capturing means for capturing an image of an edge, image processing means for processing an image of an edge of a work captured by the image capturing means, moving means for moving the work to a predetermined arrangement position and arranging the work, A transparent work arranging device, comprising: a control means for controlling the means based on a signal from the image processing means. 2. The transparent work arranging device according to claim 1, wherein the irradiation angle of the illuminating light by the illuminating means is within a range of 10 to 60 ° with respect to the horizontal direction. 3. The transparent work according to claim 1, wherein only those whose edge area of the image-processed work is within a predetermined range are arranged at a predetermined position. Array device. 4. The transparent work arranging device according to claim 1, wherein the transparent work is a crystal blank that constitutes a crystal oscillator. 5. A transparent work is illuminated with an illumination light from an oblique direction to illuminate an edge, an image of the work is obtained by reflected light of the edge portion, the image of the work is processed, and image processing is performed. The data is supplied to the control means, and the work is controlled by the control means based on the data to arrange the works at a predetermined position.