This application is based on and claims priority from Japanese patent application No. 2021-128514 filed on Aug. 4, 2021, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates to an electric wire bundling robot that bundles any plurality of electric wires, among a plurality of electric wires arranged in parallel in a substantially horizontal plane, for binding by tape winding or the like.
For example, a wire harness of an automobile is manufactured by bundling a plurality of electric wires and subjecting the plurality of electric wires to tape winding or the like. In recent years, a system that performs wire-arranging work by a robot has been developed to meet a demand for efficiency improvement and labor saving.
Patent Literature 1 discloses a technique of bundling a plurality of electric wires in a hanging state. Patent Literature 1 discloses, as a robot hand for performing work on electric wires, a processing robot including a gripping hand for bundling electric wires to a state in which the electric wires can be finally bound, and an auxiliary hand for enclosing scattered electric wires in advance so that the electric wires can be easily bundled before the gripping hand is closed.
In the technique disclosed in Patent Literature 1, it is necessary to provide an auxiliary hand, which is dedicated to enclosing electric wires, separately from the gripping hand, and thus there is a problem that the structure becomes complicated.
In arranging many electric wires to manufacture a wire harness, it is easy to create a well-designed system that deploys the electric wires on a horizontal jig plate. Therefore, a system has been studied in which a robot is installed with respect to a jig plate for routing electric wires in a substantially horizontal plane and routing work is performed by the robot.
However, in a case of arranging electric wires in a horizontal direction to manufacture a wire harness, there is a problem that the electric wires are loosened by its own weights even when tension is applied to the electric wires. Depending on a manufacturing process of the wire harness, the electric wires may be intentionally loosened. Therefore, even when a plurality of electric wires are arranged in parallel at the same height, a height of an electric wire to be bound varies due to a difference in conditions such as a weight and tension of each electric wire.
Therefore, even if gripping claws of a robot hand are closed from both sides in an arrangement direction of electric wires, there is a possibility that an electric wire escapes the bundling. As a matter of course, if a size of the gripping claws of the robot hand is increased, the possibility of being able to prevent an electric wire from being left out in the picking-up is increased. In this case, however, the handling performance of the robot hand may deteriorate, and thus the size of the gripping claws cannot be increased too much.
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide an electric wire bundling robot that is capable of simplifying a configuration without providing extra equipment such as an auxiliary hand, and that is capable of enclosing an electric wire to be bound without leaving out the electric wire regardless of a slight positional deviation and bundling and gripping the electric wire even if a size of a gripping claw is not increased too much.
An electric wire bundling robot according to an embodiment includes
Specific embodiments according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.
As illustrated in
The robot hand 10 is a portion that bundles and grips a plurality of electric wires W and performs straightening processing on the electric wires W in a gripped state. The robot arm 1 has a configuration in which a plurality of arm portions are coupled to each other via a joint mechanism so as to be rotatable about an axis, and the robot hand 10 is provided at a tip end portion of the robot arm 1. The bundling robot operates the robot arm 1 so as to be able to move the robot hand 10 to any position in any posture with respect to the electric wires W to be bundled. That is, the robot hand 10 can perform multi-axis motion as indicated by arrows H1 to H4 in
Here, the processing of bundling electric wires W refers to processing of gathering a plurality of electric wires W when the plurality of electric wires W are scattered in parallel so that the subsequent gripping and binding processing can be easily performed. In order to perform the processing of bundling electric wires W, the robot hand 10 is provided with a gripping mechanism 11 having gripping claws 23 that can be opened and closed.
The straightening processing on the electric wires W is processing of sliding the robot hand 10 along an extending direction of the electric wires W in a state where the electric wires W are gripped by the gripping mechanism 11. By this processing, curls of the electric wires W can be removed or the electric wires W can be stretched. That is, by straightening the electric wires W before binding the electric wires W, it is possible to prevent the electric wires W from being bound in a state where a part of the electric wires W is bent. Accordingly, the dimensional accuracy can be improved.
In order to perform such straightening processing on electric wires W, the gripping mechanism 11 of the robot hand 10 can grip the electric wires W with a force that allows the sliding. Further, the robot arm 1 can slide the robot hand 10 along the electric wires W.
After the straightening processing, processing is performed in which an adhesive tape is wound around the bundled electric wires W to bind the plurality of electric wires W. In order to perform the binding processing, various configurations including a known tape automatic winding machine may be provided in the robot hand 10 or may be provided separately from the robot hand 10.
Next, the gripping mechanism 11 provided in the robot hand 10 will be described.
The gripping mechanism 11 is provided so as to be able to bundle and grip any plurality of electric wires among a plurality of electric wires by being controlled to any position and posture by the robot hand 10. The control device drives and controls the robot arm 1 and the robot hand 10 to cause the gripping mechanism 11 to perform an operation for bundling or straightening.
The gripping mechanism 11 includes a pair of gripping blocks 20A and 20B that perform opening and closing operations and face each other in a horizontal direction intersecting the extending direction of the electric wires W. In
The gripping claw 23 of the gripping piece 21A of the one gripping block 20A and the gripping claw 23 of the gripping piece 21B of the other gripping block 20B are combined so as to face each other, thereby constituting a first gripping part 21. The gripping claw 23 of the gripping piece 22A of the one gripping block 20A and the gripping claw 23 of the gripping piece 22B of the other gripping block 20B are combined so as to face each other, thereby constituting a second gripping part 22. Accordingly, the first gripping part 21 and the second gripping part 22 are positioned to be separated from each other in the extending direction of the electric wires W.
Since the gripping claw 23 of the one gripping piece 21A of the first gripping part 21 and the gripping claw 23 of the one gripping piece 22A of the second gripping part 22 are provided integrally with the one gripping block 20A, both gripping claws 23 operate integrally with the one gripping block 20A when the one gripping block 20A performs the opening and closing operations. In addition, since the gripping claw 23 of the other gripping piece 21B of the first gripping part 21 and the gripping claw 23 of the other gripping piece 22B of the second gripping part 22 are provided integrally with the other gripping block 20B, both gripping claws 23 operate integrally with the other gripping block 20B when the other gripping block 20B performs the opening and closing operations. Therefore, the first gripping part 21 and the second gripping part 22 simultaneously performs the opening and closing operations when a driving mechanism (not shown) of the gripping mechanism 11 is driven.
Shapes of the gripping blocks 20A and 20B are set such that, when the pair of gripping claws 23 facing each other of the first gripping part 21 and the pair of gripping claws 23 facing each other of the second gripping part 22 are simultaneously closed to bundle the electric wires W, as illustrated in
Each of the pair of gripping claws 23 and 23 facing each other of the first gripping part 21 has a lower claw portion 23a directed obliquely downward and an upper claw portion 23b directed obliquely upward by providing a V-shaped recess as a space for taking in an electric wire on a surface facing the gripping claw 23 on the other side. The pair of gripping claws 23 are disposed adjacent to each other at positions shifted from each other in the extending direction of the electric wires W. At the time of the closing operation, the lower claw portions 23a overlap each other in a shifted state and the upper claw portions 23b overlap each other in a shifted state, so that a space around the electric wires W defined by the lower claw portions 23a and the upper claw portions 23b can be reduced and the electric wires W can be bundled.
The pair of gripping claws 23 and 23 facing each other of the second gripping part 22 also have exactly the same configuration as that of the first gripping part 21. Note that a shifting direction of the positions of the pair of gripping claws 23 and 23, of the first gripping part 21 and the second gripping part 22, for being shifted from each other is arbitrary.
In the example of
By controlling the robot arm 1, the robot hand 10, and the gripping mechanism 11, the control device can cause the gripping claws 23 of the first and second gripping parts 21 and 22 to move freely. In particular, in the present embodiment, when necessary, the control device performs control such that the lower claw portion 23a of one of the pair of gripping claws 23 and 23 facing each other can be moved so as to function as a “scooping claw” by moving the one gripping claw 23 obliquely upward from below. A timing of this operation is, for example, before or in the middle of a bundling operation.
Next, the effects will be described.
Further,
When performing the bundling operation on the electric wires W, as illustrated in
When there is such a possibility, the position and posture of the gripping mechanism 11 are controlled, so that the robot hand 10 (gripping mechanism 11) is appropriately inclined or moved as indicated by an arrow S1 in
Then, as illustrated in
As described above, the lower claw portion 23a is moved so that the electric wires W to be bundled can be scooped up without leaving any out, and at the same time or after that, the pair of gripping claws 23 and 23 are to be closed as illustrated in
Next, when it is necessary to straighten the bundled electric wires W, the robot hand 10 is moved relative to the electric wires W in a length direction of the electric wires W in a state where the bundled electric wires W are gripped by the gripping claws 23 and 23, and the electric wires W are straightened to a binding portion. Specifically, in a state where the bundled electric wires W are lightly gripped by the gripping mechanism 11, the robot arm 1 moves the robot hand 10 along the electric wires W to the binding portion. When the electric wires W are straightened to the binding portion in this manner, the electric wires W are in a stretched state. In this state, a binding tape (see reference numeral 110 in
When binding with the tape, as illustrated in
As described above, according to the bundling robot of the present embodiment, the electric wires W to be bundled can be scooped up and bundled without leaving any out by the lower claw portions 23a provided in the gripping claws 23 and 23. Therefore, it is less likely to be affected by the number and positions of the electric wires W to be bundled, and it is not necessary to particularly increase the sizes of the gripping claws 23 and 23. In addition, since providing an auxiliary hand separately from a gripping hand (corresponding to the gripping claws 23) as in the related art is not necessary, the structure can be simplified.
In addition, according to the bundling robot of the present embodiment, since the lower claw portion 23a and the upper claw portion 23b formed by the V-shaped recess are provided in both of the pair of gripping claws 23 and 23, the space around the electric wires W can be reduced in a well-balanced manner during the closing operation of the gripping claws 23 and 23, and the electric wires W can be easily bundled.
In addition, according to the bundling robot of the present embodiment, since the work space 28 for tape winding or the like is secured between the first gripping part 21 and the second gripping part 22, as described above, it is possible to stably perform tape winding while gripping front and rear portions of a tape winding target portion by the first and second gripping parts 21 and 22, and it is possible to improve the tape winding quality.
Although both the pair of gripping claws 23 and 23 are provided with the lower claw portion 23a and the upper claw portion 23b formed by the V-shaped recess in the above embodiment, the lower claw portion 23a and the upper claw portion 23b formed by the V-shaped recess may be provided in just one gripping claw 23, and the other gripping claw 23 may be formed in a linear shape extending in an up-down direction.
In the present embodiment, the gripping claw 23 of the pair of gripping claws 23 and 123 facing each other has the lower claw portion 23a directed obliquely downward and the upper claw portion 23b directed obliquely upward by providing a V-shaped recess as a space for taking in electric wires W on a surface facing the gripping claw 123 on the other side.
On the other hand, the other gripping claw 123 of the pair of gripping claws 23 and 123 facing each other is configured as a linear claw portion extending linearly in the up-down direction.
In addition, the pair of gripping claws 23 and 123 are disposed adjacent to each other at positions shifted from each other in an extending direction of the electric wires W. At the time of a closing operation, the lower claw portion 23a and the upper claw portion 23b of the one gripping claw 23 and the linear claw portion of the other gripping claw 123 overlap in a shifted state, so that a space around the electric wires W defined by the lower claw portion 23a, the upper claw portion 23b, and the linear claw portion is reduced and the electric wires are bundled.
According to this embodiment, since the one gripping claw 123 is configured as the linear claw portion, a width dimension of the linear claw portion in an arrangement direction of the electric wires W can be reduced. Therefore, even when an interval between the electric wire W and the electric wire W is narrow, the linear claw portion can be easily inserted between the electric wire W and the electric wire W, and a bundling operation can be smoothly performed.
According to the present embodiment, an electric wire bundling robot includes
According to the electric wire bundling robot having the above configuration, the electric wires to be bundled can be scooped up and bundled, without any being left out, by the lower claw portion provided in the gripping claw. Therefore, it is less likely to be affected by the number and positions of the electric wires to be bundled. Further, providing an auxiliary hand separately from a gripping hand (corresponding to the gripping claw) for enclosing electric wires in advance so that the gripping hand easily bundles the electric wires, as in the related art, is not necessary, and thus the structure can be simplified.
In the electric wire bundling robot,
According to the electric wire bundling robot having the above configuration, since the lower claw portion and the upper claw portion formed by the V-shaped recess are provided in both of the pair of gripping claws, it is possible to reduce the space around the electric wires in a well-balanced manner at the time of the closing operation of the gripping claws, and it is easy to bundle the electric wires.
In the electric wire bundling robot,
According to the electric wire bundling robot having the above configuration, since one gripping claw is configured as the linear claw portion, a width dimension of the linear claw portion in an arrangement direction of the electric wires W can be reduced.
Therefore, even when an interval between an electric wire and an electric wire is narrow, the linear claw portion can be easily inserted between the electric wire and the electric wire, and the bundling operation can be smoothly performed.
In the electric wire bundling robot,
According to the electric wire bundling robot having the above configuration, since a work space for tape winding or the like is secured between the first gripping claw and the second gripping claw, for example, the tape winding can be stably performed while gripping front and rear portions of a tape winding target portion by the first and second gripping claws, and the tape winding quality can be improved.
According to the present embodiment, the electric wires to be bundled can be scooped up and bundled, without any being left out, by the lower claw portion provided in the gripping claw. Therefore, it is less likely to be affected by the number and positions of the electric wires to be bundled, and it is not necessary to particularly increase sizes of the gripping claws. In addition, since providing an auxiliary hand separately from a gripping hand as in the related art is not necessary, the structure can be simplified.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2021-128514 | Aug 2021 | JP | national |
Number | Date | Country |
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60-212911 | Oct 1985 | JP |
2017-144501 | Aug 2017 | JP |
2017144501 | Aug 2017 | JP |
2018-006309 | Jan 2018 | JP |
2018-014262 | Jan 2018 | JP |
2018-144216 | Sep 2018 | JP |
2018153891 | Oct 2018 | JP |
Entry |
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Translation of JP-2018153891 (Year: 2018). |
Translation of JP-2017144501 (Year: 2017). |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20230041080 A1 | Feb 2023 | US |