To provide an appearance inspection system capable of reduce labor for setting an imaging condition by a designer when a plurality of inspection target positions on a target is sequentially imaged. An appearance inspection system includes an imaging condition decision part and a route decision part. The imaging condition decision part decides a plurality of imaging condition candidates including a relative position between a workpiece and an imaging device for at least one inspection target position among a plurality of inspection target positions. The route decision part decides a change route of an imaging condition for sequentially imaging the plurality of inspection target positions by selecting one imaging condition among the plurality of imaging condition candidates so that a pre-decided requirement is satisfied.

Methods, apparatus, systems, and computer-readable media are provided for determining one or more spatial constraints associated with an object to be acted upon by a robot; determining a plurality of candidate physical arrangements of the object that satisfy the one or more spatial constraints; calculating, for one or more of the plurality of candidate physical arrangements of the object, a candidate physical arrangement cost that would be incurred as a result of the robot acting upon the object in the candidate physical arrangement; and selecting, from the plurality of candidate physical arrangements, a candidate physical arrangement associated with a candidate physical arrangement cost that satisfies a criterion.

A trajectory generating method includes a first generating process of generating a plurality of trajectories between a start teaching point and a target teaching point, an evaluation process of evaluating a motion of the robot arm on each trajectory to calculate an evaluation value of each trajectory, a selection process of selecting one of the plurality of trajectories based on calculated evaluation values, and an update process of updating the trajectory by repeating the processes of generating a plurality of new trajectories by changing a selected trajectory in the selection process, of calculating an evaluation value of a motion of the robot arm on each changed trajectory and of selecting a trajectory based on calculated evaluation values.

To generate a more appropriate path, provided is a robot path generation device including circuitry configured to: hold a track planning module learning data set, in which a plurality of pieces of path data generated based on a motion constraint condition of a robot, and evaluation value data, which corresponds to each of the plurality of pieces path data and is a measure under a predetermined evaluation criterion, are associated with each other; and generate, based on a result of a machine learning process that is based on the track planning module learning data set, a path of the robot between a set start point and a set end point, which are freely set.

A trajectory generating method includes a first generating process of generating a plurality of trajectories between a start teaching point and a target teaching point, an evaluation process of evaluating a motion of the robot arm on each trajectory to calculate an evaluation value of each trajectory, a selection process of selecting one of the plurality of trajectories based on calculated evaluation values, and an update process of updating the trajectory by repeating the processes of generating a plurality of new trajectories by changing a selected trajectory in the selection process, of calculating an evaluation value of a motion of the robot arm on each changed trajectory and of selecting a trajectory based on calculated evaluation values.

A method for controlling movement trajectories of a robot, the method including predicting, in an offline mode, values of at least one parameter related to the execution of alternative movement trajectories between a first position of the robot and a second position of the robot; selecting, in the offline mode, a movement trajectory based on the predicted values of the at least one parameter; and executing the selected movement trajectory by the robot. A control system for controlling movement trajectories of a robot is also provided.

An appearance inspection system includes a setting part, a movement mechanism, and a control part. The setting part sets a route passing through a plurality of imaging positions in order. The setting part sets the route so that a first time necessary for the movement mechanism to move an imaging device from a first imaging position to a second imaging position among the plurality of imaging positions is longer than a second time necessary for a process of changing a first imaging condition corresponding to the first imaging position to a second imaging condition corresponding to the second imaging position by the control part. The control part starts the process of changing the first imaging condition to the second imaging condition earlier by the second time or more than a scheduled time at which the imaging device arrives at the second imaging position.

A coordination system for a handling device including a plurality of kinematic chains is provided. Each of the kinematic chains being movable in a workspace. At least two of the workspaces having an overlap, the kinematic chains being designed to carry out a work movement based on a work command. The coordination system includes a trajectory planning module and a control module. The control module is designed to activate the kinematic chains to carry out the work movement based on trajectory data. The trajectory planning module is designed to determine the trajectory data to carry out the work movement and to provide the trajectory data to the control module. The trajectory planning module is designed, if a further work command is provided while the work movement is being carried out, to replan the trajectory data into replanned trajectory data and provide these data to the control module.

An appearance inspection system enabling a route to be easily set when a target is imaged while causing a relative position of an imaging device with respect to the target to be different is provided. A decision part decides a plurality of relative position candidates of the imaging device with respect to the target at which focus of a lens module is possible on the inspection target position with regard to each of a plurality of the inspection target positions on the target. A selection part selects relative positions one by one from corresponding plurality of relative position candidates for each of the plurality of inspection target positions and selects a route candidate satisfying a preset requirement from a plurality of route candidates generated by sequentially connecting the plurality of selected relative positions as a designation route.

Systems and a method for determining a sequence of kinematic chains of a multiple robot along a sequence of locations. Inputs on the locations to be reached by a robot tool are received. Each chain is considered separately by setting one chain in use and determining, for each chain in use, available configurations for each location. The available configurations are represented as nodes of a graph representing available robotic paths for reaching with a tool the locations, while allowing the switching among different chains within the same robotic path. Valid connectors are determined by simulating collision free robot trajectories while taking into account working modality constraints of the locations. Weight factors are assigned to connectors to represent robot efforts in moving between subsequent configurations. The shortest robotic path among valid paths is determined by taking into account the weight factors. The sequence of chains is determined from the shortest path.