Electricity: motive power systems – Positional servo systems – Vehicular guidance systems with single axis control
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-16
2004-04-06
Leykin, Rita (Department: 2837)
Electricity: motive power systems
Positional servo systems
Vehicular guidance systems with single axis control
C318S568110, C318S568120, C318S568160, C318S568230, C318S568250
Reexamination Certificate
active
06717382
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method of connecting a mobile, electronic control and/or monitoring unit to at least one machine or at least one machine component in a group or a plurality of machines or machine components to be monitored and/or controlled, for example industrial robots or manipulators, and an appropriate control and/or monitoring unit for this purpose, having an input device with several control elements and/or an optical display and having at least one interface co-operating with at least one control device for one or more machines or machine components, for example robots.
2. The Prior Art
An automation system with individual production cells consists of several machines or industrial robots programmed by an operator, and these have to equipped accordingly and optionally checked and monitored in order to set up a correct production sequence and obtain consistently high product quality. Mobile or portable electronic control units are used for this purpose, which more often than not enable the technical process to be displayed. The respective machines are usually arranged very close to one another and, because they are generally assigned to different processing tasks, these machines therefore have different control programmes for operating the requisite motion or processing sequence. A mobile control and/or monitoring unit must be designed for use with as many machines as possible in order to keep the number of control and/or monitoring units needed, and hence the costs of the technical plant, to a minimum. In order to be able to connect the control and/or monitoring unit to a specific machine, the operator generally has to enter identification numbers or codes from the hand terminal or select these from a list of codes. This is usually assisted by lists of references or plans relating to the installation and types of machines and this documentation has to be kept constantly up to date in order or prevent error sources.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The underlying objective of the present invention is to provide a connection method without increasing the complexity inherent in the requisite operation. Another objective of the invention is to provide a control and/or monitoring unit that is suitable for this purpose.
The objective is achieved by the invention due to the fact that in a connection or log-on procedure between the control and/or monitoring unit and the respective machine or a distant point on the machine, a clear connection or log-on link is set up by means of interfaces to the selected, wireless direction-finder of the corresponding distant point or by means of transmitters and/or receivers tuned to the transmission range or reception range, with a limited, localised functional or operating range and, once the connection has been acknowledged and established, the pre-programmed control and/or monitoring of the machine or the machine component is managed via another, standard data transmission means, for example a hard-wired network and/or via a wireless link between the control and/or monitoring unit and the selected machine or selected machine component. The advantage of this arrangement is that control and/or monitoring unit or the hand terminal used to control and/or observe an application can be operated in a manner that is totally logical and transparent to the operator. Furthermore, the connection as proposed by the invention is performed with the least possible risk of error and the connection sequence is clearly visible to the operator during the process. Another significant advantage of the features proposed by the invention resides in the fact that the log-on or connection procedure can be performed in a much shorter time so that the actual control or monitoring process can be performed sooner. Moreover, there is no longer any need to update or maintain documentation or plans, thereby ruling out another source of errors due to obsolete data, documentation or plans during control or monitoring. Consequently, the solution proposed by the invention enables a control and/or monitoring unit or a hand terminal to be logged on in a perfectly orderly and rapid manner to the applications which need to be controlled and/or monitored. In addition, there is barely any possibility of incorrect operation such as occurs when a number or an address has to be entered from a manual terminal. The method proposed by the invention therefore protects the machinery or the product to be manufactured and personnel from significant damage or injury. As a result of the directed or restricted geographical functional or operating range of the communication or transmission channel, the log-on or connection is very selective and incorrect connections can be virtually ruled out. The log-on or connection procedure is absolutely clear and logically transparent to the user. Another advantage is that the interfaces or the transmitters and/or receivers used to set up the transmission or communication channel may have a small bandwidth and are therefore relatively inexpensive to set up. The actual control and/or display data is in effect exchanged via the tried and tested, functionally safe data transmission means operated in an automation system of this type anyway.
A clear signal is indicated at least on the respective machine and/or on the control and/or monitoring unit when a link or connection has been established, which is an advantage because the user can be alerted to the fact that an operational connection has been established with the respective machine by acoustic and/or optical means.
Another advantage is that an active connection or log-on of a control and/or monitoring unit to one or more machines or machine components can not be terminated except by a deliberate or conscious log-off by the user, who must operate at least one control element of an input device of the control and/or monitoring unit or a control device of the machine or the machine component, which prevents the control and/or monitoring unit from being undesirably connected again or logged on again to another machine, thereby ruling out incorrect control procedures or erroneous monitoring procedures.
Because the link or log-on connection is cyclically checked against a valid log-on process and the control and/or monitoring unit is terminated either automatically or by the user, who simply quits by selecting the log-off option if the selected link or log-on connection goes down or is interrupted, a procedure to log off the control and/or monitoring unit can be operated extremely quickly and particularly easily.
During the procedure of logging on the control and/or monitoring unit, an identification number or code is transmitted and an acknowledgement returned, via the standard data transmission means or via the same wireless transmission channel, by the distant point or machine receiving this code, which also checks to ensure that the control and/or monitoring unit transmitting the code is valid, so that a specific machine or a specific machine component can not log on inadvertently or undesirably, nor can a specific machine or a specific machine component be controlled more than once.
The connection between the control and/or monitoring unit and the respective machine to be controlled and/or observed is effected automatically on entering the functional or operating range of the transmitter and/or receiver or simply by actively accepting/acknowledging the potential connection, which firstly makes for very easy operation and secondly means that a link or connection can only be made consciously by the user, thereby preventing undesirable connections.
Since the user can access the control and/or monitoring unit directly, a connection can be activated instantaneously and easily without the user having to switch locations.
The fact that the functional and operating range of the transmitters and/or receivers lies within the close immediate vicinity around the machines and/or around the control and/or monitoring unit means, firstly, that the hand terminal can
Graiger Dieter
Richter Siegfried
Keba AG
Leykin Rita
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