A liquid discharge apparatus includes a head, a position changer, and circuitry. The head has a nozzle. The head discharges a liquid from the nozzle to apply the liquid onto a surface of an object. The head has a prescribed discharge condition. The position changer changes a relative position between the object and the head. The circuitry determines a linear trajectory along which the position changer moves the head based on the prescribed discharge condition, outputs a first command including multiple moving positions along the linear trajectory to the position changer to cause the position changer to move the head along the linear trajectory, and outputs a second command including multiple discharge positions to the head to cause the head to discharge the liquid at the multiple discharge positions.

A tool path for treating a shoe upper may be generated to treat substantially only the surface of the shoe bounded by a bite line. The bite line may be defined to correspond to the junction of the shoe upper and a shoe bottom unit. Bite line data and three-dimensional profile data representing at least a portion of a surface of a shoe upper bounded by a bite line may be utilized in combination to generate a tool path for processing the surface of the upper, such as automated application of adhesive to the surface of a lasted upper bounded by a bite line.

A method includes performing a substrate processing process by carrying a substrate into a chamber, and disposing the substrate in a loading region of the chamber, capturing an image of a lower surface of the substrate to acquire a first image, identifying particle patterns formed on the lower surface of the substrate in the substrate processing process, and an edge of the substrate, from the first image, calculating a first alignment error value of a deviation between an approximate position value for the center of the loading region calculated from the particle patterns and an approximate position value for a center of the substrate calculated from the edge of the substrate, and determining a point in time for teaching a transfer robot that deposits the substrate into the chamber, based on the first alignment error value.

A method applying a bead of a coating product to a surface by a print head equipped with nozzles, each centered on a central axis, the coating product application moves the print head and the surface relative to each other, by moving the print head along a fixed trajectory relative to the surface without rotating the print head about an axis parallel to the central axes of the nozzles. The method includes selecting certain nozzles for a point of the trajectory based on the trajectory direction at this point, and activating the selected nozzles at this point. The selected nozzles are arranged in a line, or form part of a nozzle group delimited by a line, whose regression line coincides with a line as close as possible to a line perpendicular to the trajectory direction from among lines that can be defined with nozzles of the print head.

A method for temporal synchronization between an automatic movement device and a contactless detection device arranged on the automatic movement device in order to measure a physical parameter along at least one and the same defined trajectory along the surfaces of a plurality of materials to be evaluated.

A control method for a robotic system includes the robotic system having a transportation device that transports an object and a robot that performs work while following the object being transported by the transportation device, the method makes the robot follow the object by a control signal calculated based on a transport speed of the object detected from an output signal of an encoder located on the transportation device, and changes a calculation method of the control signal when the transport speed exceeds a threshold.

A method for line matching during image-based visual servoing control of a robot performing a workpiece installation. The method uses a target image from human demonstration and a current image of a robotic execution phase. A plurality of lines are identified in the target and current images, and an initial pairing of target-current lines is defined based on distance and angle. An optimization computation determines image transposes which minimize a cost function formulated to include both direction and distance between target lines and current lines using 2D data in the camera image plane, and constraint equations which relate the lines in the image plane to the 3D workpiece pose. The rotational and translational transposes which minimize the cost function are used to update the line pair matching, and the best line pairs are used to compute a difference signal for controlling robot motion during visual servoing.

A tool path for treating a shoe upper may be generated to treat substantially only the surface of the shoe bounded by a bite line. The bite line may be defined to correspond to the junction of the shoe upper and a shoe bottom unit. Bite line data and three-dimensional profile data representing at least a portion of a surface of a shoe upper bounded by a bite line may be utilized in combination to generate a tool path for processing the surface of the upper, such as automated application of adhesive to the surface of a lasted upper bounded by a bite line.

Systems and methods for real time feedback and for updating welding instructions for a welding robot in real time is described herein. The data of a workspace that includes a part to be welded can be received via at least one sensor. This data can be transformed into a point cloud data representing a three-dimensional surface of the part. A desired state indicative of a desired position of at least a portion of the welding robot with respect to the part can be identified. An estimated state indicative of an estimated position of at least the portion of the welding robot with respect to the part can be compared to the desired state. The welding instructions can be updated based on the comparison.

A method is disclosed, including: providing a part having a target at which an assembly operation is to be performed by an industrial robot; determining the target position, by controlling the end effector of the robot to approach the target, detecting a contact between a location utensil attached to the end effector and the target and controlling the end effector of the robot at least by force control until the location utensil reaches a predetermined position relative to the target, and determining the target position as indicated by the absolute position of the location utensil when the location utensil is in said predetermined position relative to the target; registering the target position; and controlling the end effector of the robot to perform the assembly operation at the registered target position. An assembly unit or system is also disclosed.