A direct teaching method of a robot includes specifying one of a plurality of robot arms as a master arm and specifying as a slave arm at least one of the robot arms which is other than the master arm; causing the slave arm to operate cooperatively with the master arm so that relative positions and postures of a wrist part of the master arm and a wrist part of the slave arm become a predetermined relation, while a teaching person is directly applying a force to an arbitrary location of the master arm including a tool, to move the master arm to a desired teaching position; and storing position information of at least one of the master arm and the slave arm at a time point when the master arm has reached the desired teaching position.

A direct teaching method of a robot includes specifying one of a plurality of robot arms as a master arm and specifying as a slave arm at least one of the robot arms which is other than the master arm; causing the slave arm to operate cooperatively with the master arm so that relative positions and postures of a wrist part of the master arm and a wrist part of the slave arm become a predetermined relation, while a teaching person is directly applying a force to an arbitrary location of the master arm including a tool, to move the master arm to a desired teaching position; and storing position information of at least one of the master arm and the slave arm at a time point when the master arm has reached the desired teaching position.

This invention relates to force/torque sensor and more particularly to multi-axis force/torque sensor and the methods of use for directly teaching a task to a mechatronic manipulator. The force/torque sensor has a casing, an outer frame forming part of or connected to the casing, an inner frame forming part of or connected to the casing, a compliant member connecting the outer frame to the inner frame, and one or more measurement elements mounted in the casing for measuring compliance of the compliant member when a force or torque is applied between the outer frame and the inner frame.

This invention relates to force/torque sensor and more particularly to multi-axis force/torque sensor and the methods of use for directly teaching a task to a mechatronic manipulator. The force/torque sensor has a casing, an outer frame forming part of or connected to the casing, an inner frame forming part of or connected to the casing, a compliant member connecting the outer frame to the inner frame, and one or more measurement elements mounted in the casing for measuring compliance of the compliant member when a force or torque is applied between the outer frame and the inner frame.

An off-line programming apparatus includes a model creation unit that creates three-dimensional models of a robot and a load, a storage unit that stores a dynamic parameter of the load, a graphic creation unit that creates a three-dimensional graphic representing the dynamic parameter based on the dynamic parameter, and a display unit that displays the three-dimensional models of the robot and the load and the three-dimensional graphic. The dynamic parameter includes inertia around three axes that are orthogonal to one another at a centroid of the load. The three-dimensional graphic is a solid defined by dimensions in three directions orthogonal to one another. The graphic creation unit sets a ratio of the dimensions in the three directions of the three-dimensional graphic to a ratio corresponding to a ratio of the inertia around the three axes.

An articulated robotic device includes a robotic hand device, an end effector device, an output section, and a controller. The robotic hand device includes arms coupled to each other. The end effector device is connected to the robotic hand device. The output section outputs a signal indicating a magnitude of an external force applied to the end effector device and a direction of the external force. The controller controls movement of the robotic hand device according to the magnitude and the direction of the external force. Moreover, the controller performs posture fixing control by controlling the movement of the robotic hand device so that a posture of the end effector device is fixed in a specific posture during direct teaching of the articulated robotic device by an operator.

There is provided a robot control apparatus that controls a vertical articulated robot and is suitable for direct teaching. In the apparatus, an axis setting section sets operation axes and control axes from among the axes subjected to angle control, when performing the direct teaching of changing a position of the arm tip, while retaining a posture thereof at a target posture. The operation axes can be dominant factors when determining the position of the arm tip and are allowed to freely move according to an external force, and the control axes can be dominant factors when determining the posture of the arm tip and are controlled by an angle control section. When performing the direct teaching, the angle control section receives an input of current angles of the operation axes and the target posture to calculate command angles of the respective control axes according to inverse kinematics calculation.

A teaching device for a robot, which includes a microphone, voice recognition circuity, specific-word extraction circuitry configured to extract a specific word matching with a word recognized by the voice recognition circuitry, and operation command generation circuitry configured to generate an operation command for the robot based on operational information associated with the specific word extracted by the specific-word extraction circuitry. The specific word includes a first word for specifying a pitch corresponding to a moving distance when the robot is moved in a given direction from a specified location, and a second word for specifying a moving direction of the robot, When the pitch specified by the first word is not updated and the moving direction of the robot is specified by the second word, the operation command generation circuitry generates the operation command so that the robot is moved in the specified direction at the specified pitch.

A method for automatically ascertaining an input command for a robot, wherein the input command is entered by manually exerting an external force onto the robot. The input command is ascertained on the basis of the joint force component attempting to cause a movement of the robot in only one robot joint coordinate sub-space which is specific to the input command. The joint forces are imprinted with the external force.

A method for automatically ascertaining an input command for a robot, wherein the input command is entered by manually exerting an external force onto the robot. The input command is ascertained on the basis of the joint force component attempting to cause a movement of the robot in only one robot joint coordinate sub-space which is specific to the input command. The joint forces are imprinted with the external force.