JPS60160412A - System for deciding fault location - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To detect simply and surely a fault by storing the on/off of each switch or the like at the start time or the like at each unit operation at the normal state and detecting a fault based thereupon in detecting the fault of a limit switch or the like. CONSTITUTION:A centralized controller 30 controls robots 11-14 or the like by using a centralized control memory 31 and robot operation teaching data memories 34, 35 or the like via robot controllers 32, 33. Moverover, an external contact diagnostic device 37 diagnoses external contacts by using a table 46 storing the concerned information. The said memory 31 has control message tables 41-45 or the like, and control information transmitted from the controller 30 to each equipment is registered in table 41 according to the operation No. where the centralized controller 30 is started in response to a synchronism exclusion step definition table 42 and an operation management table 43. Then the failure is detected only to external contacts having relation to the synchronism exclusion step and the fault is detected by the information taught at the normal state.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Application of the Invention] The present invention relates to a method for determining an abnormal location, and is particularly applicable to determining an abnormal side in an operation control device for processing equipment such as an industrial robot that uses a large number of limit switches. The present invention relates to a suitable abnormality location determination method.

[Background of the invention]

Factory automation (FA) has recently been attracting attention, and in the FA field, there is a strong demand for efficient processing and assembly operations by combining automatic processing machines, industrial robots, and the like.

Conventionally, when combining teaching-playback type robots and automatic processing machines to perform cooperative operations, it was necessary to create interlocks between them and create control programs, which was extremely troublesome. There was a problem.

This will be explained in more detail below.

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a component mounting station using two robots. In the figure, 1o is a parts supply conveyor, 11 is a parts handling robot (hereinafter referred to as "robot (1)"), 12 is a parts positioning device, 13 is a rotary table, and 14 is a screw tightening robot (hereinafter referred to as "robot (2)"). ''), 15 indicates the pallet on which parts are being mounted.

FIG. 2 is a key period exclusive operation sequence chart of the equipment shown in FIG.
Each of the 14 facilities is as shown in (a) to (d), respectively.
This is to operate cooperatively under synchronized and exclusive control.

In FIG. 2, boxes 101 to 133 indicate unit operations of each piece of equipment, and solid arrows connecting the boxes indicate that the unit operation written in the box at the starting point of the arrow has been completed, and that the transition condition is For example, limit switch 0N1
This indicates that when the 0FF condition is satisfied, the unit operation written in the box at the end of the arrow is activated.

In the sequence shown in FIG. 2(b), the unit operation (112) of "grabbing the component" is completed, and "placing it on the positioning device"
As a transition condition for activating the unit operation (113), there is a case where the limit switch attached to the hand portion of the robot (1) 11 is turned on.

This is to confirm whether or not the part can be grasped securely.If the above limit switch is OFF, the transition condition does not hold, and for example, the part may have fallen due to some reason. It is determined that the unit action (112) of grasping has failed, and the robot stops.

In automated equipment where a large number of limit switches and proximity switches are used, the limit switches and the like are used to confirm operation, as mentioned above, but these limit switches and the like physically operate. Therefore, its reliability is low, and failures of this type of switch are not reproducible.

For this reason, in conventional automated equipment, when an abnormality occurs in the equipment, it is difficult to determine the cause of the abnormality, and even if it is determined that the cause is a limit switch failure, which limit There was a problem in that it took a lot of time and effort to check whether the switch was malfunctioning.

For this purpose, it is possible to include failure diagnosis data that is separate from the control data, but this requires the creation of separate diagnostic data, as well as the need to change the control data. However, there are problems in that there are many troublesome points, such as the need to change the above-mentioned diagnostic data.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and its purpose is to solve the above-mentioned problems in the conventional abnormality detection method of automated equipment control systems, and to provide an alternative method for detecting failures in limit switches, etc. An object of the present invention is to provide an abnormality location determination method that can be easily and reliably performed.

[Summary of the invention]

The main point of the present invention is that when detecting a failure of the limit switches, etc. in automatic processing equipment where a large number of contact points such as limit switches are used, it is possible to detect which unit operation (or ON when completed)
or OFF is stored, and based on that data, a failure of a contact such as the limit switch is detected. However, performing this operation every time for all contacts will increase the amount of processing, so we automatically detect synchronization and exclusive steps where only the transition condition is not satisfied during the execution of the operation sequence, and Regarding limit switches related to the above, abnormalities are detected by determining whether the limit switch should currently be ON or OFF based on data learned during normal operation.

[Embodiments of the invention]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 6, 30 is an overall control device, 31 is an overall control memory,
Reference numerals 32 and 33 designate a robot control device, 34 and 35 a memory for robot operation teaching data, 36 a monitor terminal, 37 an external contact diagnosis device, and 38 a relay control panel. Further, 11 to 14 indicate the same components as previously shown in FIG. 1, 41 to 45 are tables storing general control information, and 46 is a table storing information for external contact diagnosis. It shows.

First, tables 41 to 4 in the overall control memory 31
The configuration of No. 5 will be explained. Table 42 is a synchronization exclusive step definition table, which registers the combinations of unit operations that are waiting for an interlock signal for synchronization or exclusion and unit operations that are interlocked, as shown in FIG. This is a table where Figure 4 shows the specific details.

Information regarding the execution of unit operations of each facility, indicated by completion action Nα and start-up wait action Nα in FIG. 4, is stored in the operation management table 43 in the form shown in FIG. When all the unit operations of the completion-time operation Nα registered in each synchronization exclusive step are completed, if a transition condition described later is satisfied, the unit operation of the activation waiting operation Nα is activated.

That is, the control information in the control message table 41 of FIG. 9, which will be described later, indicated by the message N of the unit operation Nα is transmitted to the corresponding destination. Note that the transitions in FIG. 4 are pointers indicating transition conditions registered in the transition condition management table 44 shown in FIG. 6.

In the operation management table 43 shown in FIG. 5, the activation management status 201 includes 0: Waiting for activation and 1: Already activated. It shows how far you have progressed. Correspondingly, 1: operation completed and 2 = operating state are recorded in the operation state 202.

In the transition condition table 44 shown in FIG. 6, in the transition condition logical expression 203, a transition condition expressed as a logical operation expression with the external contact point Nα as an operand is registered. Each number in the transition condition logical formula 203 represents an external contact Nα, for example, the logical formula rllAND of transition In 1
1; IJ is established when the external contact N (Lll) is ON and the external contact 12 is ON.'The transition state 204 includes 0: Transition condition not satisfied and 1: Transition condition satisfied.

The 0N10FF states of the contacts of each part are stored in the external contact 0N10FF information table 45 in the form shown in FIG. In FIG. 7, the current external contact state 205 is 0.
: External contact OFF, 1: External contact ON, and 0N10FF information of external contacts such as limit switches of each equipment is managed collectively. Further, the status monitoring flag 208 is for storing status changes of the external contacts, and is set to 0:
If the external contact status has not changed, 1 corresponds to the case where it has changed.

The control message table 41 contains control information that the central control device 30 transmits to each facility in response to the operation Nα activated by the central control device 30 according to the synchronous exclusive step definition table 42 and the operation management table 43, as shown in FIG. Register it in the format shown. In FIG. 9, the control information 206 includes startup program: ih, operating pararotor Nα: jh
and relay 0N10FF pattern 2m are registered.

The above is the control data necessary for the overall control device 30.

FIG. 8 is an external contact diagnosis table 46, which shows, for each external contact, which unit operation is related to the start or completion of which external contact state changes to ON or OFF state, and Information such as the number of times the state changed due to the unit operation is registered. In FIG. 8, the operating states correspond to 1: vortexing and 2: completion.

FIG. 10 shows the configuration of the overall control device 30.

In the figure, reference numeral 51 indicates an operation start determination section, 52 an external contact state learning section, 53 an operation management information update section, 54 a start operation Nα reading section, 55 a completion signal latch section, and 56 a control message transmission section. There is.

The functions of each of the above components will be explained. Operation start determination unit 51
From the synchronous exclusive step definition table 42 and the operation management table 43, the wait for completion action Nα and the wait for start action Nα
and these startup management states 201 and operating states 202 are read out (62, 67). Also.

Transition condition management table 44 and external contact 0N10FF
From the information table 45, the external contact state 205 related to the transition condition logical expression 203 corresponding to the transition Nα of the synchronous exclusion step definition table 42 is read (65, 66).

Next, based on the above-mentioned data, the motion start determination unit 51 executes the completion waiting motion Nu according to the flowchart shown in FIG.
A synchronous exclusive step is selected in which all unit operations in the activation waiting operation Nα are completed, all unit operations in the activation waiting operation Nα are waiting to be activated, and the transition condition is satisfied, and this is sent to the activation operation reading unit 54 (63 ).

The activation operation reading section 54 reads out the control information control message table 41 corresponding to the activation standby state sent from the operation activation determination section 51 (61).

The control message is sent to the control message transmitter 56 (77). Also.

The control message transmitter 56 transmits the control information to the control device of the corresponding equipment (75).

Each piece of equipment executes a unit operation corresponding to the control information sent from the central control device 30, and sends a completion signal to the completion signal latch unit 55 when the execution of the unit operation is completed (74
). The operation management information updating unit 53 updates the operation state of the operation Nα from the in-operation state to the operation-completed state based on the latched completion signal (73).

The external contact state learning unit 52 checks the external contact 0N10FF information table 45 according to the flowchart shown in FIG. 12 each time it receives each completion signal or transmits an operation start signal, and determines the state according to the start or completion of the unit operation. Find the external contacts that have changed (69). Then, the external contact whose state has changed is related to which unit operation is started or completed, and how many times the state has changed due to that unit operation is stored in the external contact diagnosis table 46 (71).
.

In addition, when the operation start determination unit 51 examines each synchronous exclusive step according to the flowchart in FIG. It is sent to the contact diagnosis device 37 (76).

The external contact diagnosis device 37 has a configuration as shown in FIG. 13, in which reference numeral 81 indicates a faulty external contact Ha transmission section, 82 a faulty external contact Nα detection section, and 83 a related external contact reading section.

The related external contact NCh reading unit 83 reads the transition column indicated by the synchronous exclusive step column sent from the general control bag W130 from the synchronous exclusive step definition table 42), and manages the transition condition logical expression indicated by the transition column. table 44
(96). Then, the external contact wires forming the logical formula are sent to the faulty external contact wire detection section 82 (98).

The failure external contact Na detection section 82 is connected to the related external contact reading section 8.
Regarding the external contact having the external contact Nα sent from No. 3, it is determined whether the external contact is in failure or not according to the flowchart shown in FIG. That is, among the unit operations related to the change of the external contact to the ON state from the external contact diagnosis table 46 stored during normal operation, the most frequent unit operation and the change of the external contact to the OFF state are determined. Among the unit operations, read out the unit operation that occurs most often and the status (completed or activated) of each unit operation.95
), and from these and the currently activated unit operation, it is determined whether the external contact should be in the ON state or the OFF state.

Now, assuming that there is no repetition of exactly the same operation in a series of sequences, synchronized exclusive step definitions for the external contacts from the unit operation related to the change to the ON state to the unit operation related to the change to the OFF state. If you can trace table 42.

The external contact is in the ON state from the start or completion of the unit operation related to the change to the ON state until the start or completion of the unit operation related to the change to the OFF state, and in other sections. It should be in the OFF state.

On the other hand, from the unit operation related to the change to the ON state to the OFF state
If the synchronous exclusive step definition table 42 cannot be traced to the unit operation related to the change to the OFF state, the external contact remains in the OFF state until the unit operation related to the change to the OFF state is started or completed. , and should be in the ON state in other sections.

For example, in the case of synchronous exclusive step 1, its transition Nα is 1
(see Figure 4), and its transition condition logical formula is rl I
ANDI 2J (see Figure 6).

According to the external contact diagnosis table 46, the external contact &11 changes to the ON state when the unit operation 112 is completed,
Since the synchronous exclusive step definition table 42 can be traced from the 6-unit operation 112 to 118, which changes to the OFF state when the unit operation 118 is activated, the external contact Nα11 indicates that the unit operation 112 is completed. It should remain in the ON state until the unit operation 118 is activated. If the external contact Nα is in the OFF state even though the unit operation 113 has been started, it is determined that the external contact Nα11 is abnormal (faulty).

The external contact Nα in which an abnormality has been detected is sent to the faulty external contact transmitter 81 (92), and the faulty external contact Nα transmitter 81 converts the sent external contact Nα into the output format of the monitor screen and sends it to the monitor terminal 36. (91), the external contact diagnosis device 37 determines whether the external contact (Nα11) should be ON or OFF based on the current situation from the data stored during normal operation, and detects the failed external contact (91). Automatically detect contacts.

According to this embodiment, a synchronous exclusive step in which only the transition condition is not satisfied during the execution of an operation sequence is detected, and failure detection is performed only for external contacts related to the synchronous exclusive step, thereby detecting a failure of an external contact. can be effectively performed, and a failed external contact can be detected based on information learned during normal operation without having to prepare failure diagnosis data separately from control data.

In the above embodiment, the overall control device 30 and the external contact diagnosis device 37 are provided independently, but it goes without saying that they may be integrated into one device.

It goes without saying that the formats of the overall control information tables 41 to 45 and the external contact diagnosis table 46 stored in the overall control memory 31 are not limited to those shown in the above embodiments. That's true.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, in automatic processing equipment etc. in which a large number of contacts such as limit switches are used,
When detecting failures in the limit switches, etc. mentioned above, remember which unit operation the limit switch, etc. changes to ON or OFF when the unit operation starts (or completes) during normal operation, and use that data. Based on this, failures in the contacts of the limiter switches, etc., are detected, making it possible to easily and reliably detect failures in the limit switches, etc. This has the following effects.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of a station for mounting parts, Fig. 2 is a synchronous exclusive operation sequence chart of equipment at the station for mounting parts, Fig. 3 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, and Figs. 4 to 9 The figure shows the control information table.
Figure 0 is a detailed configuration diagram of the overall control device, Figures 11 and 12
14 and 14 are processing flowcharts, and FIG. 13 is a detailed configuration diagram of the external contact diagnosis device. 30... General control device, 31... Memory for general control, 37... External contact diagnosis device, 46... Table for external contact diagnosis, 52... External contact state learning unit, 82.
... Late Tomi 1 Figure 2 Figure ((L) (bn (C) (ρ() Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Z z Figure Y 7 Figure 3 Hq Figure \lρ Figure \1III Figure Figure 12 Figure 13

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a control system that combines a group of unit operations taught or programmed in advance to form a series of operation sequences including synchronization or exclusion, a first system that stores the activation order relationship of each unit operation to be synchronized or excluded; a second storage means for storing the transition conditions of the unit operation depending on the state of the external contact; and a third storage means for storing the unit action related to the change in the state of the external contact during execution of the operation sequence. An abnormality location determination method, characterized in that the state of the external contact is estimated from the information stored in the third storage means during execution of the operation sequence and the current operating status of each equipment.