A method of controlling a movement of a robot based on determination of a risk level includes: a risk level determining operation of determining a risk level related to a motion of the robot; and a robot control operation of controlling the movement of the robot based on the risk level, wherein the robot transfers an object. The determination of the risk level related to the motion of the robot includes: an internal risk level determining operation of determining an internal risk level based on an attribute of the object; and an external risk level determining operation of determining an external risk level related to an environmental state around the robot.

There is provided a laser processing system including: a robot; a laser emission section provided on the robot; an irradiation path calculation section configured to calculate an irradiation path of a laser beam emitted from the laser emission section using information on a position of the robot; a determination section configured to determine whether the irradiation path calculated passes through an allowable irradiation region that is predetermined; and a laser-output reduction section configured to reduce output of the laser beam to be emitted to the irradiation path to a second output lower than a first output for processing in accordance with a determination by the determination section that the irradiation path does not pass through the allowable irradiation region.

A robot system includes a robot body, a memory, an operation controlling module, a manipulator, and a limit range setting module configured to set a limit range of the corrective manipulation by the manipulator. The operation controlling module executes a given limiting processing when a corrective manipulation is performed beyond the limit range from an operational position based on automatic operation information. The limit range setting module calculates a positional deviation between the operational position based on the automatic operation information before the correction and an operational position based on the corrected operation information, and when the positional deviation is at or below a first threshold, narrows the limit range in the next corrective manipulation by the manipulator.

A robot collision avoidance motion optimization technique using a distance field constraint function. CAD or sensor data depicting obstacles in a robot workspace are converted to voxels, and a three-dimensional binary matrix of voxel occupancy is created. A corresponding distance map matrix is then computed, where each cell in the distance map matrix contains a distance to a nearest occupied cell. The distance map matrix is used as a constraint function in a motion planning optimization problem, where the optimization problem is convexified and then iteratively solved to yield a robot motion profile which avoids the obstacles and minimizes an objective function such as distance traveled. The distance field optimization technique is quickly computed and has a computation time which is independent of the number of obstacles. The disclosed optimization technique is easy to set up, as it requires no creation of geometry primitives to approximate robot and obstacle shapes.

A robot optimization motion planning technique using a refined initial reference path. When a new path is to be computed using motion optimization, a candidate reference path is selected from storage which was previously computed and which has similar start and goal points and collision avoidance environment constraints to the new path. The candidate reference path is adjusted at all state points along its length to account for the difference between the start and goal points of the new path compared to those of the previously-computed path, to create the initial reference path. The initial reference path, adjusted to fit the start and goal points, is then used as a starting state for the motion optimization computation. By using an initial reference path which is similar to the final converged new path, the optimization computation converges more quickly than if a naive initial reference path is used.

In a robot having a first rotary shaft and a second rotary shaft driven by respective motors and extending in the same direction, the second rotary shaft is rotated while vibrating the first rotary shaft that is holding a load directly or indirectly, thereby rotating the first rotary shaft relative to a load. This enables calculating the gravitational torque of the load applied to the first rotary shaft.

A self-contained truck-mounted brick laying machine can include a frame that can support packs or pallets of bricks placed on a platform. A transfer robot can pick up and move the brick(s). A carousel can be coaxial with a tower. The carousel can transfer the brick(s) via the tower to an articulated and/or telescoping boom. The bricks can be moved along the boom by, e.g., linearly moving shuttles, to reach a brick laying and adhesive applying head. The brick laying and adhesive applying head can mount to an element of the stick, about an axis which is disposed horizontally. The poise of the brick laying and adhesive applying head about the axis can be adjusted and can be set in use so that the base of a clevis of the robotic arm mounts about a horizontal axis, and the tracker component is disposed uppermost on the brick laying and adhesive applying head. The brick laying and adhesive applying head can apply adhesive to the brick and can have a robot that lays the brick. Vision and laser scanning and tracking systems can be provided to allow the measurement of as-built slabs, bricks, the monitoring and adjustment of the process and the monitoring of safety zones. The first, or any course of bricks can have the bricks pre machined by the router module so that the top of the course is level once laid.

Provided is a robot system that can accurately sense contact between an arm of a robot or an instrument attached to the arm and another object. The robot system includes: a robot main body 22 and a robot control unit 21, the robot main body 22 including: a motor 8; a deceleration device 19 connected to a motor shaft 17 of the motor 8; an arm 15 connected to an output shaft 16 of the deceleration device 19; a motor shaft-side angular sensor 1 capable of detecting an angle of rotation of the motor shaft 17 of the motor 8; and an output shaft-side angular sensor 2 capable of detecting an angle of rotation of the output shaft 16 of the deceleration device 19, and the robot control unit 21 being configured to detect a contact state between the arm 15 or an instrument attached to the arm 15 and another object, based on a motor shaft-side rotation angle detected by the motor shaft-side angular sensor 1, an output shaft-side rotation angle detected by the output-side angular sensor 2, and an angular sensor misalignment correction value for the motor shaft-side angular sensor 1 and the output shaft-side angular sensor 2.

A substrate transfer robot includes a robot body including a first hand having a first substrate placing part on which a substrate is placed and a first substrate holding mechanism configured to hold and release the substrate, and a robot controller. The robot controller controls a speed of the first hand such that an absolute value of a first maximum speed or an absolute value of a first maximum acceleration during a first period after the first hand starts retreating until the substrate is held by the first substrate holding mechanism is lower than an absolute value of a second maximum speed or an absolute value of a second acceleration during a second period after the substrate is held until the first hand ends retreating.

A robot movement teaching apparatus including a movement path extraction unit configured to process time-varying images of a first workpiece and fingers or arms of a human working on the first workpiece, and thereby extract a movement path of the fingers or arms of the human; a mapping generation unit configured to generate a transform function for transformation from the first workpiece to a second workpiece worked on by a robot, based on feature points of the first workpiece and feature points of the second workpiece; and a movement path generation unit configured to generate a movement path of the robot based on the movement path of the fingers or arms of the human extracted by the movement path extraction unit and based on the transform function generated by the mapping generation unit.