Compact robot arm member relative movement sensor

Details Compact robot arm member relative movement sensor Compact robot arm member relative movement sensor

1983-04-12

1989-04-04

Spar, Robert J.

Material or article handling

Vertically swinging load support

Grab

901 45, 901 47, 901 29, 901 9, 73800, 338 15, 356152, B25J 900, B25J 1702

Patent

active

048181749

ABSTRACT:
Apparatus for determining when the hand of a robot arm, resiliently mounted on a robot arm body, strikes or makes contact with an object that impedes or limits its movement, employs an optical fiber in place of conventional light focusing optics to produce a compact and ruggedized robot arm member relative movement sensor. The apparatus includes a light source mounted in a particular location on the robot arm hand and a light sensitive device spaced from the light source and mounted in a particular location on the robot body, a device that is capable of continuously generating a hand-to-robot arm body relative position signal in response to the particular location of collimated light from the robot hand mounted light source that passes through a light collimating optical fiber and strikes the light sensitive surface of the light sensitive device. Relative movement between the robot arm body and the robot hand resulting from contact between a motion-impeding object and the robot hand causes the light sensitive device to generate a signal indicative of such object contact and/or extent of relative hand-to-robot arm movement. The use of an optical fiber in the light path in place of a conventional lens makes it possible to employ this relative movement sensing apparatus in a vibratory environment and also makes it possible to shorten the light path length and thereby reduce the size of said relative motion sensing apparatus.

REFERENCES:
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IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, "Position Detecting Apparatus", H. R. Rottman, vol. 9, #5, Oct. 1966.

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