A screwing device including: a container for screws; a manipulator having an effector to pick up a screw; an isolating unit connected to the container to provide the screw from the container at an interface such that a head of the screw is accessible to the effector; and a control unit to control the manipulator in executing a control program to perform operations including: guiding the effector along a trajectory having an orientation to the screw head at the interface, wherein the orientation is defined for locations along the trajectory; and executing force-regulated, impedance-regulated, and/or admittance-regulated periodic and closed tilting movements of the effector in relation to its orientation until a condition for a torque, a force, or a time for carrying out the tilting movements is reached or exceeded, and/or a force/torque and/or a position/speed signature at the effector is reached or exceeded, indicating successful pick-up of the screw.

A nut runner, an attachment unit, and a sliding member are provided in a second arm that is a leading arm of the robot and has a leading end shaft movable along the direction of an elevation axis. The nut runner includes a screw fastening driver, a drive shaft rotationally driven by the screw fastening driver, and an extension bar that is so connected to rotate together with the drive shaft in the circumferential direction and to move in the axial direction. The attachment unit fixedly connects the screw fastening driver to the second arm so that a screw fastening axis parallel to the elevation axis serves as a rotation axis of the screw fastening driver. The sliding member is connected to the leading end shaft and supports the extension bar so as to move together in the axial direction and are rotatable relatively in the circumferential direction.

A method for controlling a level of quality of screwdriving by a screwdriver relative to a predetermined screwdriving objective. Such a method takes account of a series of data that are representative of the rise in torque of at least two screwdrivings of screws at a predetermined angular frequency and includes: obtaining a sub-series of data for each of the screwdriving operations, corresponding to a sub-series of measurements delivering the sub-series of data; optimized aggregation of the sub-series, to form the series of data, including eliminating data corresponding to a number of measurements that is determined according to a criterion of optimization of periodicity; and analyzing the series of data, delivering information representative of a dispersion and/or a deviation relative to the screwdriving objective, resulting from disturbances induced by the screwdriver.

The invention relates to a screwing device, including a storage container for screws having a screw head, a screw head drive, and a threaded pin, a robot manipulator having an effector, which is adapted to the screw head and the screw head drive, and is embodied and configured to pick up and handle such a screw, an isolating unit connected to the storage container, which provides screws from the storage container isolated at an interface at a known position in such a way that a respective screw head is accessible to the effector, a control unit for controlling/regulating the robot manipulator, wherein the control unit is embodied and configured to execute the following first control program: the effector is guided by the robot manipulator along a predetermined trajectory T1 having a target orientation O.sub.target,T1(R.sub.T1) to the screw head of a screw provided at the interface, wherein along the trajectory T1 for locations R.sub.T1 of the trajectory T1, the target orientation O.sub.target,T1(R.sub.T1) of the effector is defined, wherein to pick up the screw head in the effector, force-regulated and/or impedance-regulated and/or admittance-regulated rotational movements and/or tilting movements and/or translational movement patterns of the effector in relation to its target orientation are executed by the robot manipulator until a predetermined limiting value condition G1 for a torque acting on the effector and/or a predetermined limiting value condition G2 of a force acting on the effector and/or a limiting value condition G3 for a time for carrying out the rotational and/or tilting movements and/or translational movement patterns is reached or exceeded and/or a provided force/torque signature and/or a position/speed/acceleration signature at the effector is reached or exceeded, which indicates/indicate that the picking up of the screw by the effector has been successfully completed within predefined tolerances.

An automatic screw tightening module includes a plate assembly, an input module, a screwdriver module, a transmission module, a movable module, an elastic element and a position sensor. The screwdriver module includes a screwdriver and a screwdriver sleeve. The transmission module is connected with an input terminal of the input module and the screwdriver sleeve for allowing the input terminal, the transmission module and the screwdriver sleeve to be rotated synchronously. The movable module is movably disposed on a base plate of the plate assembly. The movable module includes a bearing, and portion of the screwdriver sleeve is accommodated in the bearing, so that the screwdriver module and the movable module are moved relative to the base plate. The elastic element is disposed on the base plate and connected with the movable module. The position sensor is disposed on the base plate for sensing a displacement of the movable module.

A method for producing a screw connection having a screw that is set in rotational motion with a screwdriving head of a screwdriving tool. The screwdriving head has a motor drive for creating the rotational motion of a screw receptacle of the screwdriving head. The screw is driven into at least one mating part of the screw connection in a rapid speed. A torque is detected with which the screw is driven. The rapid speed with a higher rotational speed is changed to a creep speed with a lower rotational speed at a changeover time. The changeover time is determined as a function of the detected torque during screwdriving at rapid speed. The screw is further driven at the creep speed until a head contact time when a head of the screw makes contact on the mating part.

A method is provided for managing optional functions in a screw driving system using a fleet of at least two control hubs, each controlling at least one piece of production equipment and being capable of being used with at least one optional function. Each control hub stores non-differentiated tokens. The optional function is assigned a pre-defined weight, corresponding to a number of tokens. The optional function is pre-installed and deactivated in the control hub. The optional function can be selectively activated on the control hub if the control hub has available a number of tokens greater than the weight of the function, a quantity of tokens corresponding to the weight being debited from the number of tokens available to the control hub, and the function can be selectively deactivated. The quantity of tokens are then made freely usable. Two control hubs can transfer non-differentiated tokens to each other.

A control device which controls a robot having a moving part includes: a processor which is configured to cause an end effector provided on the moving part to move an insertion object, bring the insertion object into contact with an insertion hole provided in an insertion target object in the state where the insertion object is tilted from a center axis of the insertion hole, and subsequently insert the insertion object into the insertion hole.

A method is provided for managing optional functions in a screw driving system using a fleet of at least two control hubs, each controlling at least one piece of production equipment and being capable of being used with at least one optional function. Each control hub stores non-differentiated tokens. The optional function is assigned a pre-defined weight, corresponding to a number of tokens. The optional function is pre-installed and deactivated in the control hub. The optional function can be selectively activated on the control hub if the control hub has available a number of tokens greater than the weight of the function, a quantity of tokens corresponding to the weight being debited from the number of tokens available to the control hub, and the function can be selectively deactivated. The quantity of tokens are then made freely usable. Two control hubs can transfer non-differentiated tokens to each other.

A nut runner, an attachment unit, and a sliding member are provided in a second arm that is a leading arm of the robot and has a leading end shaft movable along the direction of an elevation axis. The nut runner includes a screw fastening driver, a drive shaft rotationally driven by the screw fastening driver, and an extension bar that is so connected to rotate together with the drive shaft in the circumferential direction and to move in the axial direction. The attachment unit fixedly connects the screw fastening driver to the second arm so that a screw fastening axis parallel to the elevation axis serves as a rotation axis of the screw fastening driver. The sliding member is connected to the leading end shaft and supports the extension bar so as to move together in the axial direction and are rotatable relatively in the circumferential direction.