JP2013071828A - Article transportation apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an article transportation apparatus capable of high-speed transportation of articles delivered at random intervals.SOLUTION: To attract an article 10 at an attracting position U facing the article 10 by means of an attracting device 34 by turning an arm 32 according to information obtained by an article identification means when a rotating body 20 is rotating, the attracting device 34 descends while keeping a suction operation from diagonally above the article 10 to the vicinity of a lowered position including the attracting position U in a midway area between a lifted position and the lowered position and speed change by a motor for lifting/lowering the arm 32 takes place in a way that the attracting device 34 descends more slowly in the vicinity of the lowered position than in the midway area between the lifted position and the lowered position to attract/pick up the article 10.

Description

  The present invention relates to an article conveying apparatus that can convey an article at high speed.

  The article conveyed at random on the conveyor is imaged by an imaging means such as a CCD camera, and based on the imaged information, the robot arm is rotated and the article is adsorbed by an adsorber provided on the arm. An apparatus for transferring an article to another conveyor is known (for example, see Patent Document 1). The apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 1 rotates an arm of a robot on the basis of information on an article on a first conveyor imaged by an imaging unit, and the first conveyor has an irregular interval in front, rear, left, and right in the transport direction. A specific article is adsorbed from among the articles conveyed in (1), the arm is rotated toward the second conveyor, and the article is placed on the second conveyor.

JP 2006-160416 A

  In the apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 1, since one arm of the robot travels back and forth between the first conveyor and the second conveyor to convey the article, when the subsequent process is processed at a high speed, the high-speed processing is performed. Each article cannot be sucked and conveyed at a high speed so as to correspond. Since the articles that could not be adsorbed by the robot are frequently collected by the collection device, the articles cannot be efficiently transferred from the first conveyor to the second conveyor.

  That is, the present invention has been proposed in order to suitably solve these problems inherent in the conventional article conveying apparatus, and even if the article has been conveyed at an arbitrary interval, An object of the present invention is to provide an article conveyance device that can be adsorbed and conveyed at high speed.

In order to overcome the above-mentioned problems and achieve the intended purpose, an article transporting apparatus according to claim 1 of the present application provides:
A rotating body that rotates around a vertical axis in a certain direction;
A plurality of arms that are rotatably supported with respect to the rotating body apart from the rotation center of the rotating body, and that are independently rotated around an axis in the vertical direction;
An adsorber provided on each arm and moved up and down between a raised position and a lowered position by driving a motor;
Article recognition means for recognizing the position of an article conveyed on the conveyor at an arbitrary interval,
Based on the information obtained by the article recognition means, the arm is rotated during rotation of the rotating body, and when the article is adsorbed by the adsorbing tool at the adsorption position facing the article to be adsorbed, The suction tool is lowered while being sucked toward the vicinity of the lowered position including the suction position from an obliquely upper side of the article to be sucked in the middle range between the lowering position and near the lower position than the middle range. The article is adsorbed by shifting the motor so as to lower the adsorber slowly.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, even if articles are conveyed on the conveyor at an arbitrary interval, the articles can be adsorbed in a stable posture and conveyed at a high speed. Further, when the article is adsorbed, it is difficult to affect the article other than the article to be adsorbed by suction.

The invention according to claim 2 is characterized in that the lowering position is set at a high position away from the article to be sucked, and the sucking tool floats and sucks the article at the sucking position.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, when the article is adsorbed, the article is not pressed against the conveying surface of the conveyor by the adsorber, so that the article is not loaded and the article is held in a stable posture. Can be adsorbed.

In the invention which concerns on Claim 3, when raising the articles | goods adsorbed by the said adsorption tool, the said adsorption tool is lowered | hung in the height range until the lower end of this article exceeds the upper end of the adjacent article | item on a conveyor. The speed of the motor is controlled so as to increase the moving speed of the suction tool when it is raised.
According to the invention which concerns on Claim 3, when raising the adsorbed article | item, it can avoid contacting the adjacent article | item on a conveyor.

The invention according to claim 4 is characterized in that an article to be adsorbed is adsorbed by the adsorbing tool by rotating the arm in a direction opposite to the rotation direction of the rotating body.
According to the invention of claim 4, when the article is adsorbed by the adsorbing tool, the arm is rotated in the direction opposite to the rotation direction of the rotating body to reduce the relative speed of the adsorbing tool with respect to the article. It can be adsorbed in a stable posture.

  According to the article conveying apparatus according to the present invention, even if articles are conveyed on the conveyor at arbitrary intervals, the articles can be adsorbed in a stable posture and conveyed at high speed.

(a) is a schematic plan view which shows the article conveyance apparatus which concerns on the suitable Example of this invention, (b) is a schematic front view of a 2nd conveyor. It is a schematic front view of the article conveyance apparatus of an Example. It is explanatory drawing which shows a motion of the arm at the time of adsorb | sucking the articles | goods on a 1st conveyor with an adsorption tool. It is a control block diagram of the goods conveyance apparatus of an Example. (a) is a schematic front view which shows the crank mechanism of an Example, (b) is a schematic side view which shows the crank mechanism of an Example. It is explanatory drawing which shows the speed change of an adsorption tool.

  Next, the article conveying apparatus according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings by way of preferred embodiments.

  As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the article conveying apparatus receives a first conveyor (conveyor) 12 including a belt conveyor that conveys a plurality of articles 10 at a predetermined speed, and receives the articles 10 from the first conveyor 12. And a robot 14 that conveys the article 10 so as to be delivered to the placement position X. In the embodiment, the placement position X is set at the upstream portion of the second conveyor 16 disposed adjacent to the first conveyor 12 so that the article 10 is placed at the same position every time. The article 10 is placed at the placement position X at a timing between the partition members 18 and 18 disposed in the space (see FIG. 1B). In the first conveyor 12, a plurality of articles 10 are conveyed at irregular intervals (arbitrary intervals) in the front-rear and left-right directions in the conveyance direction. The second conveyor 16 conveys the articles 10 placed one by one between the partition members 18 and 18 at the placement position X in a row, and puts the articles 10 into the tubular film in the horizontal bag making and filling machine at predetermined intervals. To supply.

  The robot 14 is attached to a gantry (not shown), and includes a rotating body 20 that is rotatably arranged around a vertical axis (see FIG. 1 or 2). The rotator 20 receives the drive of the rotator motor 22 and rotates at a constant speed in a certain direction (counterclockwise in FIG. 1 in the embodiment). The rotating body 20 is provided with four support portions 24 having the same shape and extending outward in the radial direction. In each support portion 24, a rotation shaft 28 whose axis extends in the vertical direction with respect to the support portion 24 is separated from the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 by the same distance, and the rotation center Q is centered on the rotation center Q. Supported at angular intervals. The rotation shaft 28 is rotated by receiving a driving force of an arm rotation motor 26 disposed in each support portion 24. Each pivot shaft 28 is provided with an arm 32 that can be moved up and down along the pivot shaft 28 under the drive of an arm lift motor 30. Each arm 32 is configured to receive a drive from a corresponding arm rotation motor 26 and to rotate independently by a predetermined angle in the horizontal direction around the rotation shaft 28 together with the rotation shaft 28. The moving angle is set so as not to contact the adjacent arm 32.

  As shown in FIG. 1, each arm 32 is provided with a suction tool 34 rotatably on the arm 32 on the free end side of the arm 32 that is separated from the corresponding rotation shaft 28 by the same distance. The suction tool 34 is rotated around the vertical axis in response to the driving force from the tool motor 36. As the arm 32 is moved up and down by driving the corresponding arm lifting motor 30, the suction tool 34 provided on the free end side of the arm 32 is moved up and down between the raised position and the lowered position. . The suction tool 34 has a suction head 40 detachably attached to a lower end of a tubular body 38 supported by the arm 32, and includes an air flow path 42 penetrating vertically in the tubular body 38 and the suction head 40. . The suction head 40 is exchanged according to properties such as the shape and hardness of the article 10 to be conveyed. The adsorber 34 supplies air from the side to the air flow path 42 from an air supply source (not shown) such as a compressor via an air pipe 44 (see FIG. 2) connected to the lower side surface of the tubular body 38. A main air supply unit 43 (see FIG. 4) is provided, which serves as a so-called ejector-type vacuum generating unit that generates a negative pressure at the lower end surface of the suction head 40 by supplying air from the main air supply unit 43. That is, the suction tool 34 is configured to suck the article 10 by suction from the lower end surface. Further, the adsorbing tool 34 supplies air from an auxiliary air supply source (not shown), so that the adsorbing tool 34 is connected to the air channel 42 via an auxiliary air pipe 46 (see FIG. 2) provided above the air channel 42. An auxiliary air supply unit 45 (see FIG. 4) for supplying air from the upper opening is provided. The suction tool 34 sucks the article 10 by the suction head 40 when air is supplied from the main air supply unit 43 when the article 10 is sucked. When the article 10 adsorbed to the adsorption head 40 is cut off, the supply of air from the main air supply unit 43 is stopped and air is blown from the auxiliary air supply unit 45 into the air flow path 42 in accordance with this timing. Thus, the breakage of the negative pressure state in the air flow path 42 is assisted. Air can be supplied to each of the suction tools 34 independently from the main air supply unit 43 and the auxiliary air supply unit 45, and the suction of the article 10 or the release of the article 10 is performed for each suction tool 34.

  While the rotating body 20 is rotating, the robot 14 rotates the adsorbing tool 34 that adsorbs the article 10 so as to be closer to the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 than the rotating shaft 28. The article 10 is moved to the placement position X while being moved in the transport direction of the second conveyor 16. Further, the robot 14 has an arm so as to spread more widely than an angle θ1 of the arm 32 with respect to a line segment connecting the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 and the rotation shaft 28 when the article 10 is placed at the placement position X. 32 is rotated, and the article 10 conveyed in the article holding area K on the first conveyor 12 is adsorbed by the adsorber 34.

  As shown in FIG. 5, between the arm lifting motor 30 and the arm 32, a pulley 52 that is rotated via a belt 50 by the driving of the arm lifting motor 30, and a rotation provided coaxially with the pulley 52. A crank mechanism comprising a crank bar 56 having one end 56a pivotally supported at an eccentric position deviating from the rotation center of the member 54 is provided, and the pivot end of the arm 32 is connected to the other end 56b of the crank bar 56. Further, the other end 56b of the crank bar 56 is allowed to move in the vertical direction, while the roller 58 provided on the other end 56b is restricted from moving in the lateral direction by the guide 60, so that the rotation member 54 rotates. The rotational displacement of the one end 56a of the crank bar 56 accompanying this is converted into a vertical movement at the other end 56b of the crank bar 56. The rotation end of the arm 32 is supported so as to be movable along the axial direction (vertical direction) of the rotation shaft 28, while the rotation of the rotation shaft 28 in the circumferential direction is restricted. The arm 32 is moved up and down as the other end 56b of the crank bar 56 is driven up and down. In the crank mechanism, when one end 56a of the crank bar 56 is positioned above the rotation center of the rotating member 54, the origin position corresponding to the raised position of the suction tool 34 is set. At this time, the other end 56b of the crank bar 56 is The crank bar 56 as a whole is inclined at an angle below the one end 56a. Further, in the crank mechanism, when the one end 56a of the crank bar 56 is positioned below the rotation center of the rotating member 54, the suction tool 34 is in the lowered position, and this lowered position is above the article 10 on the first conveyor 12. The height is set so as not to contact the upper end of the article 10. Here, the speed at which the suction tool 34 is raised and lowered is configured to be variable. For example, the arm lifting motor 30 is driven in accordance with an acceleration / deceleration command from the robot controller 15 described later, and the suction tool 34 is lowered when the suction tool 34 is lowered. The lowering speed of the suction tool 34 is changed, and when the suction tool 34 is lifted, the lifting speed of the suction tool 34 is changed.

  As shown in FIG. 4, each of the rotary body motor 22, the arm rotation motor 26, the arm lifting / lowering motor 30, the suction tool motor 36, and the air supply unit having the main air supply unit 43 and the auxiliary air supply unit 45 is an article. It is controlled by the robot controller 15 based on the information of the article 10 obtained by the recognition means. The robot controller 15 performs horizontal bag making in order to issue drive commands for the various motors 22, 26, 30, 36, air supply commands to the air supply units 43, 45, and drive commands to the drive motor 12a of the first conveyor 12. Communicates and inputs information such as the respective preparation status with the packaging machine controller 60 that controls packaging such as sealing and cutting of the article 10 supplied in the film formed into a cylindrical shape in the filling machine The operation timing is adjusted in accordance with the origin position by the origin position sensor provided on the second conveyor 16 and information such as an encoder. The rotating body motor 22, the arm rotation motor 26, the arm lifting / lowering motor 30, and the suction tool motor 36 may be motors whose position and speed can be controlled by the robot controller 15, for example, servo motors are used.

  As shown in FIG. 1, on the first conveyor 12, an article recognition area N in which the article detection means 11 images the conveyance state of the article 10 every predetermined time, and is positioned downstream of the article recognition area N. Thus, an article holding region K for adsorbing the article 10 by the suction tool 34 of the robot 14 is set. In the article recognition area N, the article recognition unit images each state of the article 10 conveyed at irregular intervals in the front / rear and left / right directions by the article detection unit 11, and each time the captured data is captured, the robot sequentially The data is transmitted to the data processing unit in the controller 15 and the position of each article 10 is recognized by the processing in the data processing unit. As the article detection means 11, a detection method such as an area sensor such as a CCD, a line sensor, or an X-ray can be employed. The article holding area K is an area where the arm 32 itself can rotate within a range of a predetermined angle during the movement of the arm 32 due to the rotation of the rotating body 20 and can adsorb the article 10. , And the rotation of the suction tool 34 can complete the preparation to be placed at the placement position X of the second conveyor 16. The area is smaller than the article recognition area N and spreads to the left and right of the first conveyor 12. It is set as an area where any article 10 can be adsorbed.

  The robot controller 15 determines the order in which the articles 10 are sucked and conveyed each time a plurality of articles 10 are recognized by the article recognition means. After the article 10 sucked by the suction tool 34 is placed at the placement position X of the second conveyor 16, the robot controller 15 moves the rotation shaft 28 of the arm 32 that supports the suction tool 34 in the counterclockwise direction. The order of adsorbing the articles 10 is determined by the information from the article recognition means before reaching the advanced start position A, and the start position A is scheduled from the position of the plurality of articles 10 on the first conveyor 12 to the next. The position of the article 10 to be sucked by the suction tool 34 is calculated. For example, the suction order of the plurality of articles 10 recognized by the article recognition means is the minimum angle (described later) at which the suction tool 34 is closer to the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 than the rotation shaft 28 of each arm 32 for high-speed processing. The arm 32 is rotated at a large angle so that the arm 32 is larger than θ1, and the adjacent articles 10 are not contacted with each other in the rotation trajectory of the arm 32 among the plurality of articles 10 in the article holding region K. In addition, the suction tool 34 sequentially determines from the article 10 farthest in the rotation direction of the rotating body 20.

  Further, in the robot controller 15, the next suction plan of the article 10 to be sucked is calculated by considering the transport speed of the first conveyor 12 and the like with the information obtained by the article recognition means until the suction tool 34 reaches the start position A. Of the rotating shaft 28 starting from the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 up to the suction position U, and the article 10 at the suction position U. Various movements of the arm 32 and the suction tool 34 are determined, such as the angle θ of the arm 32 at the time of suction and the raising / lowering timing of the suction tool 34 (arm 32). Note that when the article 10 is directed in a specific direction at the placement position X, an angle or the like for rotating the suction tool 34 is also determined based on information regarding the orientation of the article 10 to be sucked at the suction position U.

  In the article transport device, when the suction tool 34 sucks the article 10 at the suction position U, the arm 32 advances forward in the rotation direction of the rotating body 20 from the rotation angle θ corresponding to the suction position U. As shown in FIG. 3, the arm 32 is rotated from the rotation angle (θ + α) to the rotation angle (θ) at the timing before and after the rotation at the movement angle (θ + α) (for example, α is 5 °). -Α) is rotated by 2α. As a result, the relative speed between the adsorbing tool 34 and the article 10 is offset or reduced, and the article 10 can be adsorbed stably.

  As a preparation for placing the article 10 at the placement position X, the robot 14 changes the angle of the arm 32 to an angle θ1 based on information obtained from the article recognition means. The angle θ1 of the arm 32 is the arm when the suction tool 34 on the free end side of the arm 32 is closest to the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 among the angles of the arm 32 within the set predetermined angle range. 32 angles. Therefore, the distance (R1) from the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 to the suction tool 34 is the shortest (R1 <the distance from the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 to the rotating shaft 28), and the angle θ1 of the arm 32 is reached. The rotation speed of the suction tool 34 is the slowest. The reason why the rotation speed is the slowest by setting the angle of the arm 32 to be the angle θ1 is to synchronize with the timing when the second conveyor 16 conveys each article 10, and the placement position of the article 10 on the second conveyor 16 This is important for reducing variation in X.

  As shown in FIG. 1 (b), the suction tool 34 descends while moving over the moving partition member 18 from the rear in the transport direction of the second conveyor 16. The supply of air from the main air supply unit 43 is stopped at the timing immediately before the suction tool 34 finishes descending in the state where the angle of the arm 32 is the angle θ1, and above the air flow path 42 from the auxiliary air supply unit 45. Air is blown from. When the vacuum state in the air flow path 42 is broken in a short time by blowing air from the auxiliary air supply unit 45, the placement position X of the article 10 extends in the width direction intersecting the transport direction of the second conveyor 16. In order to prevent deviation, the angle of the arm 32 gradually increases from the angle θ1, and the arm 32 conveys the center of the suction tool 34 to the center of the second conveyor 16 as shown by the two-dot chain line in FIG. Move in a straight line toward the direction along the center. The suction tool 34 is located at a position shorter than the distance from the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 to the rotation shaft 28 at an angle θn of the arm 32 at the end of the linear movement (θn is an angle slightly larger than θ1). In order to attract the next article 10 by the rotation of the rotating body 20, the moving toward the start position A.

  The suction tool 34 is lowered according to the timing at which the article 10 to be sucked can be sucked at the suction position U, and after the article 10 is sucked at the suction position U, the sucked article 10 is adjacent to the first conveyor 12. The arm 32 is raised to a height that does not hit the article 10 and the partition member 18 of the second conveyor 16. For example, in the high-speed processing in which 200 or more articles 10 on the first conveyor 12 are sucked and conveyed by the suction tool 34 per minute, the suction tool 34 rises without contacting the articles 10 on the first conveyor 12. The suction tool 34 is required to be moved up and down quickly between the position and the lowered position. However, when the suction tool 34 is quickly lowered and suddenly stopped at the lowered position, vibration may occur due to inertia. is expected. Therefore, in the present embodiment, the arm controller motor 30 is subjected to speed change control by the robot controller 15 so that the moving speed of the suction tool 34 in the vicinity of the lowered position becomes slow.

  Specifically, when the arm 32 is rotated during rotation of the rotating body 20 rotated at a constant speed based on information obtained by the article recognition means, a constant acceleration command or deceleration command from the robot controller 15 is applied. Accordingly, the arm raising / lowering motor 30 is driven and controlled to shift, and when the crank mechanism is operated, the suction mechanism 34 is lowered from the raised position to the lowered position and raised from the lowered position to the raised position. The ascending / descending speed of the tool 34 is changed to draw a waveform that approximates a sine wave, and the height position of the suction tool 34 is changed to draw a cosine wave. FIG. 6 shows the state of the suction tool 34 with respect to the article 10 when the suction tool 34 sucks the article 10 to be sucked while rotating the rotating body 20 at a constant speed without rotating the arm 32 by the aforementioned 2α. The position change is shown. As shown in FIG. 6, the suction tool 34 descends relatively slowly from the upper limit position until reaching the upper limit of the midway range set between the upper limit position and the lowering position, and rapidly increases in the midway range. It descends quickly. Then, the suction tool 34 moves to a point P near the boundary between the midway range and the lowering position, and the moving speed of the suctioning tool 34 gradually decreases as it moves from the P point to the lowering position. The suction tool 34 descends later than the midway range. In the vicinity of the lowered position, which is the height position from the point P to the lowered position, the timing at which the suction tool 34 starts to descend from the raised position is such that the suction tool 34 is located above the article 10 to be suctioned. 15 every time. In the vicinity of the lowered position, the vicinity of the lowered position is a height position with respect to the article 10 to be sucked so that the suction force by the suction tool 34 acts on the article 10 to be sucked but does not act on the adjacent article 10. Etc. are set in consideration. The suction position U at which the article 10 is attracted by the suction tool 34 is set at any height position near the lowered position, but in this embodiment, the suction position U is set at the lowered position. The lowered position is set at a high position away from the upper end of the article 10 to be sucked, and the suction tool 34 floats and sucks the article 10 to be sucked at the suction position U. After adsorbing the article 10 at the lowered position (adsorption position U), at least the lowering is performed so that the lower end of the adsorbed article 10 quickly exceeds the upper end of the adjacent article 10 on the first conveyor 12 (point C in FIG. 6). The arm elevating motor 30 is driven and controlled so that the suction tool 34 is moved near the position faster than when the adsorbing tool 34 is lowered (curve indicated by a two-dot chain line). In FIG. 6, the time for the suction tool 34 to descend from the raised position to the lowered position and the distance to move in the horizontal direction are the same as the time for the raised time to move from the lowered position to the raised position and the distance to move in the horizontal direction. The distance moved to the horizontal position can be arbitrarily adjusted, for example, by shortening the arm 32 by rotating it by 2α in the direction opposite to the rotation direction of the rotating body 20.

  Next, functions and effects of the article transport device according to the embodiment will be described. While the rotating body 20 is rotating, the arm 32 is rotated to change the distance from the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 to the suction tool 34, and the arm within a predetermined angle range in which the rotating angle of the arm 32 is set. The centrifugal force acting on the article 10 by rotating the rotating body 20 by moving the suction tool 34 toward the transport direction of the second conveyor 16 with the minimum rotation angle θ1 among the 32 angles. And the positional deviation of the articles in the width direction of the second conveyor 16 can be reduced. Further, when adsorbing the article 10 based on the angle θn of the arm 32 when the article 10 is placed, the arm 32 is rotated so that the arm 32 spreads larger than the angle θn. Compared to the case where the article 10 is sucked by an existing type of robot that does not, the article holding region K can be set wider, and the positional relationship between the base point and the position where the article 10 is sucked can be easily calculated. High-speed processing is possible. Since the article conveying apparatus uses the robot 14 that adsorbs the article 10 with the adsorbing tool 34 disposed on the free end side of the arm 32 that can rotate with respect to the rotating body 20 that rotates at a constant speed in a constant direction, When adsorbing the article 10 when compared with an existing type of robot that does not have (a robot that does not have an arm corresponding to the arm 32 and is provided with a suction means on the rotating body 20), the suction tool 34 is used. Move the wide range of the first conveyor 12 at a high speed to suck the article 10 and place the article 10 on the placement position X. The article 10 is surely placed on the second conveyor 16 by decelerating from the speed at which the article 10 is sucked. It can be mounted on. The articles 10 adsorbed by the respective adsorbers 34 are continuously placed between the partition members 18 and 18 of the second conveyor 16, so that the empty bag making and filling machine can perform emptying even in high-speed processing. Generation of a bag can be prevented. Further, the suction tool 34 releases the suction and releases the article 10 while the center of the suction tool 34 moves along the transport center of the second conveyor 16, so that the article 10 is not displaced left and right. It can be placed on the second conveyor 16. Therefore, even if there is no allowance for the opening size of the tubular film, the article 10 can be supplied to the tubular film, and the film can be wrapped at high speed while consuming the film appropriately.

  The article transporting apparatus rotates the arms 32 in the same direction by an angle that does not interfere with the adjacent arm 32 from the minimum angle θ1 with the angle θ1 of the arms 32 as a minimum angle. Since the predetermined angle at which the arm 32 rotates so as to attract the article 10 is defined, the positional relationship from the minimum angle to the position where the article 10 is attracted becomes easy to perform arithmetic processing, and thus high-speed processing is possible. . Moreover, the collision between the adjacent arms 32 and 32 can be avoided. When the article conveying device sucks the article 10 in the article holding area K with the suction tool 34 at a position far from the rotation shaft 28 of the arm 32 with respect to the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20, the rotation direction of the rotating body 20 is determined. By rotating the arm 32 in the opposite direction to reduce the relative speed of the suction tool 34 with respect to the article 10, it is difficult for positional deviation to occur.

  As described above, the suction tool 34 can be lowered so as to be compatible with high-speed processing by rapidly increasing the moving speed of the suction tool 34 in the middle range and gradually gradually decelerating the vicinity of the lowering position. In addition, the inertial force when the suction tool 34 is lowered to the lowered position can be reduced, and the occurrence of vibration and the like can be suppressed. Further, in the high-speed processing, the suction tool 34 descends from obliquely above the article 10 to be sucked while sucking the suction tool 34 with suction force generated at least in the middle range, but the suction tool 34 is in the raised position. Since it descends abruptly in the midway late, it is difficult for the suction force to act on the article 10 adjacent to the article 10 to be adsorbed, and the posture of the adjacent article 10 is not disturbed. This is particularly effective when an article 10 having a different weight or the like is mixed on the first conveyor 12 to adsorb the article 10 having a heavy weight with a relatively large suction force. Furthermore, since the lowering position is set to a height that does not contact the upper end of the article 10, when the article 10 is adsorbed by the adsorbing tool 34 at the adsorbing position near the lowering position, the article 10 is moved to the conveyor by the adsorbing tool 34. Since it is not pressed against the conveying surface, no load is applied to the article 10, and the article 10 can be adsorbed in a stable posture. When the article 10 adsorbed at the adsorption position U is raised, the adsorber 34 is raised at a high speed to a height range in which the lower end of the adsorbed article 10 does not contact the upper end of the adjacent article 10 on the first conveyor 12. When the article 10 adsorbed by the adsorber 34 is transported to the placement position X, it can be avoided to contact the article 10 on the first conveyor 12.

(Change example)
The present invention is not limited to the configuration of the embodiment, and can be modified as follows, for example. It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the following modification examples, and various embodiments may be adopted for the configurations described in the examples within the scope of the gist of the present invention.
(1) The robot 14 is an example, and the arm 32 may be any one that is supported by the rotating body 20 at an equal interval angle. The number of the arms 32 is not limited, and a plurality of rotating bodies 20 are provided at the rotation center Q. The arms 32 may be rotated and supported by the respective rotating bodies, and the arms 32 may be arranged at equal intervals. The arm 32 is preferably the same type.
(2) Further, another arm may be connected to each arm 32 pivotally supported by the rotating body 20, and the other arm may be rotationally driven to attract the article 10.
(3) Although the second conveyor 16 is arranged in parallel to the first conveyor 12, if the placement position X is on the tangent line of the movement track of the suction tool 34, the second conveyor 16 is second to the first conveyor 12. The conveyors 16 may be arranged so as to intersect, for example.
(4) Although the articles 10 are arranged in a row on the second conveyor 16, the articles 10 may be arranged in a plurality of rows and conveyed, or a storage box, a tray, or the like may be placed on the second conveyor 16. A container may be placed, the article 10 may be arranged inside the box or container, and placed in the next box or container when the storage is completed.
(5) Although the arm 32 and the suction tool 34 are lifted and lowered together, lifting means for lifting and lowering only the suction tool 34 may be used. In this case, the suction tool 34 may be moved up and down by an air cylinder or the like instead of the motor.
(6) When changing the pitch of the partition members 18 of the second conveyor 16, the rotation angle of the arm 32 is changed to move from the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 along the conveyance center of the second conveyor 16. What is necessary is just to change the distance to the center of the suction tool 34. FIG. What is necessary is just to make it the relationship which the partition member 18 moves on the tangent of the movement locus | trajectory of the suction tool 34. FIG.
(7) The order of adsorbing the articles 10 in the article holding area K is the order of the articles 10 that obstruct the front side in the rotation direction of the arm 32 accompanying the rotation of the rotating body 20 among the articles 10 placed in the article holding area K. What is necessary is just to adsorb | suck from the outermost side in order. Further, in the article holding region K in which a plurality of articles 10 are arranged in the transport direction, it may be adsorbed from the downstream side of the outermost side where there are no obstructing articles. Further, if the distance from the rotation shaft 28 to the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 is increased so as not to interfere with the adjacent arm 32, the direction in which each arm 32 rotates may be freely set. .
(8) The packaging machine is not limited to the horizontal bag making and filling machine that supplies the article 10 placed on the second conveyor 16 into the cylindrical film and wraps the film. A boxing and packaging machine for boxing the article 10 that has been used may be used.

(9) When a plurality of types of articles 10 are mixed and conveyed by the first conveyor 12, the arm 32 for a line segment connecting the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 and the rotation shaft 28 according to the type of the articles 10. The article 10 may be placed at the placement position X by rotating the arm 32 with different angles. The placement position X may be set at a position where the suction tool 34 is farther from the rotation center Q of the rotating body 20 than the rotation shaft 28.
(10) The placement position X may be set on the bed on which the article 10 is pushed by the pusher conveying member, instead of being set on the conveying surface such as the belt conveyor exemplified in the second conveyor 16. The article 10 may be set on a simple fixed base and moved by another robot hand.

(11) Although the suction tool 34 is moved with a waveform that approximates a cosine wave, it may be moved linearly from the ascending position to the point P in FIG. The acceleration / deceleration of the moving speed of the suction tool 34 is not limited and may be variously set.
(12) The mechanism for raising and lowering the suction tool may accelerate or decelerate the moving speed of the suction tool by a cam mechanism or other mechanism instead of the crank mechanism.
(13) The lowering position of the suction tool 34 may be set according to the height of the upper end of the article 10 on the conveyor 12.

10 articles, 12 first conveyor (conveyor), 20 rotating body,
30 arm lift motor (motor), 32 arm, 34 suction tool, Q rotation center,
U Suction position

Claims (4)

A rotating body (20) that rotates around a vertical axis in a certain direction;
A plurality of arms (32) that are rotatably supported with respect to the rotating body (20) away from the rotation center (Q) of the rotating body (20) and are independently rotated about an axis in the vertical direction. When,
An adsorber (34) provided on each arm (32) and moved up and down between a raised position and a lowered position by driving a motor (30)
An article recognition means for recognizing the position of the article (10) conveyed on the conveyor (12) at an arbitrary interval,
Based on the information obtained by the article recognition means, the article (at the suction position (U) facing the article (10) to be sucked by rotating the arm (32) during rotation of the rotating body (20)). When adsorbing 10) with the adsorbing tool (34), in the middle range between the ascending position and the descending position, from the obliquely upper side of the article (10) to be adsorbed to the vicinity of the descending position including the adsorbing position (U) The suction tool (34) is lowered while being sucked toward the motor, and the motor (30) is shift-controlled so as to lower the suction tool (34) slower than the midway range in the vicinity of the lowered position. An article conveying apparatus for adsorbing an article (10).   The lowered position is set at a high position away from the article (10) to be adsorbed, and the adsorber (34) floats and adsorbs the article (10) at the adsorption position (U). The article conveying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein   When raising the article (10) adsorbed by the adsorbing tool (34), the lower end of the article (10) is adjacent to the adjacent article on the conveyor (12) (in the height range until the upper end of 10 is exceeded, The article conveying apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the motor is controlled to be shifted so that the moving speed of the suction tool (34) becomes faster when the suction tool (34) is lowered than when the suction tool (34) is lowered.   The article (10) to be adsorbed is adsorbed by the adsorbing tool (34) by rotating the arm (32) in a direction opposite to the rotation direction of the rotating body (20). The article conveying apparatus as described in any one of 1-3.

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