Detailed Description
It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the invention and are not intended to limit the invention.
In the following description, if suffixes such as "module", "part", or "unit" used to indicate elements are used only for the convenience of description of the present invention, they have no specific meaning by themselves. Thus, "module", "component" or "unit" may be used mixedly.
Continuing to refer to fig. 1, an embodiment of the present invention provides a method for gripping an article on a conveyor belt. The method comprises the following steps:
step S101, when an article is placed on a conveyor belt by a producer robot, recording the reading of an encoder installed on the conveyor belt as the initial reading of the article;
optionally, the recording of encoder readings mounted on the conveyor belt as the article is placed on the conveyor belt by the producer robot comprises:
when the vision device detects that the article is placed at the initial position of the conveyor belt by the producer robot, scanning the bar code of the article to acquire article information;
reading a current reading of an encoder mounted on the conveyor belt;
recording the current reading of the encoder as the initial reading of the article, and associating the initial reading with the article;
storing the initial reading associated with the item.
The articles to be gripped are placed in sequence by the producer robot at time intervals on a conveyor belt for transporting the articles. Each article is affixed with a bar code that identifies the article information. When the vision device detects that an item is placed in an initial position on the conveyor belt, the bar code of the item is scanned, information of the item is read, and a current reading of an encoder mounted on the conveyor belt is read, and this reading is marked as an initial reading of the item.
Optionally, the specific way to store the initial reading associated with the item is: and storing the initial readings associated with the items in a memory in a pointer mode.
Each pointer points to a memory location in the memory that stores an encoder start reading associated with the item information.
Step S102, tracking the reading of an encoder when an article is transported on a conveyor belt;
optionally, the specific way of tracking the encoder reading while the item is transported on the conveyor belt is: a vision device is used to track and record the encoder readings as the articles are transported on the conveyor belt.
The encoder starts counting from zero, and when the conveyor belt moves forward by a unit distance, the encoder increases the unit count until the encoder reading reaches a maximum value, the encoder resets, and starts counting again from zero.
When an article is placed on the conveyor belt, the vision device captures the encoder reading at that time, takes the initial reading of the article, and tracks and records changes in the encoder reading in real time as the article is transported on the conveyor belt.
And step S103, controlling the consumer robot to grab the articles on the conveyor belt when the reading of the encoder reaches a preset value.
Optionally, the consumer robot grabbing the item on the conveyor belt when the encoder reading reaches a preset value comprises:
calculating a difference between a current reading and an initial reading of the encoder;
when the calculated difference value reaches a value preset by an encoder, acquiring article information associated with the initial reading;
and the consumer robot grabs the article and sorts the article according to the article information.
Optionally, the calculation formula of the preset value of the encoder is as follows:
n is D/U, where N is a predetermined number, D is the distance between the initial position where the article is placed on the conveyor and the position where the article is grasped, and U is the distance that the encoder reads every incremental unit count conveyor movement.
Thus, the encoder presets values of: the distance between the initial position at which the article is placed on the conveyor belt and the article pickup position, divided by the distance the encoder reads per incremental unit of conveyor belt travel.
Since the encoder increases the count from 0 upwards, when the difference between the current reading and the initial reading of the encoder is negative, the difference between the current reading and the initial reading of the encoder is determined as the result of adding the maximum reading of the encoder to the calculation result.
Alternatively, to save memory space in the memory, the initial reading of the gripped item may be cleared from the memory space after the consumer robot has successfully gripped the item from the conveyor belt.
In the whole grabbing process, when the articles to be picked are placed on the conveyor belt one by the producer robot at one end of the conveyor belt, the consumer robots at the other end grab the articles transported in place one by one. Even if other items fall onto the conveyor belt, the consumer robot does not blindly grab even if the items are transported to the pick-up area because the initial reading of the encoder is not recorded, or the encoder reading does not reach a preset value. Therefore, the accuracy of grabbing is greatly improved.
The method for grabbing the articles on the conveyor belt of the embodiment tracks the articles by correlating the articles on the conveyor belt with the reading of the encoder, so that the articles can be accurately grabbed when reaching the goods picking area, thereby reducing the error rate of grabbing the articles and greatly improving the working efficiency.
With continued reference to fig. 2, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a system for gripping an article on a conveyor belt.
As shown in fig. 2, the grasping system includes a conveyor belt 201, a producer consumer robot 202 located near the start of the conveyor belt, a consumer robot 203 located near the pick-up area of the conveyor belt, an encoder 204 mounted on the conveyor belt, and a vision device 205 located near the conveyor belt.
When the vision device 205 detects that an article is placed on the conveyor belt 201 transporting the article by the producer robot 202, the vision device 205 records the reading of the encoder 204 and as the initial reading of the article, the vision device 205 tracks the reading of the encoder 204 while the article is transported on the conveyor belt 201, and when the reading of the encoder 204 reaches a preset value, the consumer robot 203 is controlled to grasp the article on the conveyor belt 201.
Optionally, the system for gripping an article on a conveyor belt further comprises a memory for storing an initial reading of the article.
The operation of the grasping system is illustrated below.
The encoder starts counting from 0, every second the encoder count is incremented by 1, the encoder maximum reading is 50, and the encoder count is incremented by 1 for each 10cm of forward movement of the conveyor belt. The distance between the starting position of the conveyor belt and the picking position is 300 cm.
The consumer robot places the first, second, and third items at the beginning of the conveyor belt in sequence at 10 second intervals.
When a first article is placed at the starting position, the vision device scans the bar code of the article to acquire the information of the first article, captures the reading of the encoder as 1, associates the 1 as the starting reading of the first article with the information of the first article, and stores the information in a memory in a pointer mode.
When the second object is placed at the initial position, the vision device scans the bar code of the object to acquire the information of the second object, captures the reading of the encoder as 11, associates the reading 11 as the initial reading of the second object with the information of the second object, and stores the information in a memory in a pointer mode.
When a third article is placed at the initial position, the vision device scans the bar code of the article to acquire the information of the third article, captures the reading of the encoder as 21, associates the reading 21 as the initial reading of the third article with the information of the third article, and stores the information in a memory in a pointer mode.
The vision device tracks the encoder readings as the articles are transported on the conveyor belt, and when the encoder readings reach a preset value, the consumer robot grasps the articles on the conveyor belt. The concrete mode is as follows: calculating a difference between a current reading and an initial reading of the encoder; and when the calculated difference value reaches a value preset by the encoder, the consumer robot grabs the article.
The predetermined value is the distance between the initial position at which the article is placed on the conveyor and the position at which the article is grasped, divided by the distance the encoder reads per incremental unit of conveyor travel, i.e., 300cm/10 cm-30.
For example, when the first article is transported to the middle of the conveyor belt, the encoder reads 16 at this time, the difference between the current reading and the initial reading of the encoder is 16-1-15, and the difference 15 is smaller than the preset value 30, so that the first article is not yet transported in place and the consumer robot does not grab it.
When the encoder reading associated with the first item is tracked as 31, the difference between the current reading and the initial reading of the encoder is 31-1-30, the difference 30 is equal to the preset value 30, and therefore the first item has been transported in place and the consumer robot grabs the first item.
Similarly, when the second item is associated with an encoder reading of 41, the difference between the encoder current reading and the start reading is 41-11 to 30, the difference 30 being equal to the preset value of 30, so that the second item has been transported in place and the consumer robot grabs the second item.
When the encoder reading associated with the third article is 1, the difference between the current reading and the initial reading of the encoder is 1-21-20, the difference is a negative number, and as a result, the maximum reading 50 of the encoder needs to be added, i.e., 1-21+ 50-30, so that the difference 30 is equal to the preset value 30, and therefore the third article has been transported in place, and the consumer robot grabs the third article.
Since the initial readings of items may be stored in storage, when the number of picked items is large, the initial readings of the gripped items may be cleared from storage space in order to save storage space in storage.
The system for grabbing the articles on the conveyor belt of the embodiment tracks the articles by correlating the articles on the conveyor belt with the readings of the encoder, so that the articles can be accurately grabbed by a customer robot when arriving at a picking area, thereby reducing the error rate of grabbing the articles and greatly improving the working efficiency.
On the basis of the previous embodiment, the embodiment of the invention also provides a device for grabbing the articles on the conveyor belt.
Referring to fig. 3, the apparatus for gripping articles on a conveyor belt comprises: a memory 301, a processor 302 and a computer program 303 stored on said memory 301 and executable on said processor 302, said computer program 303, when executed by said processor 302, implementing the steps of grabbing an item as in the first or second embodiment.
The device for grabbing the articles on the conveyor belt of the embodiment tracks the articles by correlating the articles on the conveyor belt with the reading of the encoder, so that the articles can be grabbed accurately when reaching the picking area, thereby reducing the error rate of grabbing the articles and greatly improving the working efficiency.
On the basis of the foregoing embodiment, another embodiment of the present invention further provides a computer-readable storage medium, wherein the computer-readable storage medium stores thereon a computer program, and the computer program, when executed by a processor, implements the steps of grabbing an article of the foregoing embodiment.
The computer-readable storage medium of the present embodiment tracks the items by correlating the items on the conveyor belt with the encoder readings, and when the items arrive at the picking area, the items can be accurately grabbed, thereby reducing the error rate of grabbing the items, and greatly improving the work efficiency.
It should be noted that, in this document, the terms "comprises," "comprising," or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Without further limitation, an element defined by the phrase "comprising an … …" does not exclude the presence of other like elements in a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises the element.
The above-mentioned serial numbers of the embodiments of the present invention are merely for description and do not represent the merits of the embodiments.
Through the above description of the embodiments, those skilled in the art will clearly understand that the method of the above embodiments can be implemented by software plus a necessary general hardware platform, and certainly can also be implemented by hardware, but in many cases, the former is a better implementation manner. Based on such understanding, the technical solutions of the present invention may be embodied in the form of a software product, which is stored in a storage medium (such as ROM/RAM, magnetic disk, optical disk) and includes instructions for enabling a terminal (such as a mobile phone, a computer, a server, an air conditioner, or a network device) to execute the method according to the embodiments of the present invention.
While the present invention has been described with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments, which are illustrative and not restrictive, and it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.