JP2001106334A - Article delivering device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable automatic aligning of articles as well as correction of positions thereof in delivering articles from the upstream side to the downstream side of a production line of a plant or factory. SOLUTION: This is an article delivering device having a belt conveyer carrying articles, an AC servo motor driving the conveyer, a servo controller controlling stoppage, drive, acceleration and deceleration of the motor, and an opti-electric sensor detecting the existence of articles conveyed by the conveyer at a specified position, wherein the moving speed of article at the time when the existence thereof is detected by the opto-electric sensor is detected, the acceleration and deceleration of the drive means is controlled based on the detected moving speed and the article is stopped once at the specified position, then the article is delivered out to a downstream device.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an article delivery apparatus, and more particularly, to a method in which products sent at an arbitrary interval from an upstream apparatus in a manufacturing factory or the like are arranged at an equal pitch to a downstream apparatus. The present invention relates to an article delivery device to be sent out.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a manufacturing factory, products are generally transferred from an upstream device to a downstream device using a belt conveyor. In a normal manufacturing process, the product conveyance pitch is often disturbed in a process performed on the upstream side, whereas in a downstream process, products are aligned at a constant pitch in a traveling direction. Required. For example, in the cooling process after heat treatment in the food production process, the transport pitch of the product after the treatment is greatly disturbed due to the nature of the cooling device, and in the packing process performed downstream, the product is sent out at equal pitch and put into the packing device There is a need to. In such a production line, when transferring a product from an upstream device to a downstream device, conventionally, an appointed worker is arranged at a product transfer position, and the product is transferred from the upstream conveyor to the downstream conveyor. After the delivery, the products are manually aligned and their positions are corrected.

[0003]

However, such an operation of correcting the position of a product involves dangers because the operator contacts the rotating body such as a belt conveyor to perform the operation. It is rare. Further, in order to achieve automation, it is required to develop a device which can suppress product cost with a compact facility and has a high control ability. Further, a versatile mechanism that can flexibly cope with a change in the type of product to be handled, a change in a production line, and the like is required. For example, when the upstream or downstream machine breaks down, it recognizes the surrounding situation and stops the transfer line according to the situation and turns it to another line. It is required that the device has

The present invention has been made in order to solve such a problem, and it is possible to automatically control the position of an article at the time of delivery to a downstream side with high precision, and to control the type of article. It is an object of the present invention to provide an article delivery device capable of flexibly responding to changes, production line changes, and the like.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention controls a conveying means for conveying an article, a driving means for driving the conveying means, and a stop, a driving and an acceleration / deceleration of the driving means. And a control means for detecting the moving speed of the article conveyed by the conveying means at a predetermined position, the control means comprising: Based on the detected moving speed of the article, the acceleration / deceleration of the driving means is controlled to temporarily stop the article at a predetermined position, and then the article is sent to a downstream device.

As described above, the delivery apparatus of the present invention detects the moving speed of a conveyed article, controls the conveying speed of the article based on the moving speed, and temporarily moves the conveyed article at a predetermined position. After stopping, the articles are sent out to a downstream device with a predetermined force. By temporarily stopping the article at the predetermined position and then sending the article to the downstream side with a predetermined force, the article is automatically aligned when the article is transferred from the upstream apparatus to the downstream apparatus. This makes it possible to secure the safety of the alignment work. Further, by detecting the moving speed of the article and controlling the transport speed of the article based on the speed, the article can be automatically stopped at a predetermined position without providing a hard stopper. Further, even when the transport interval of the articles sent from the upstream side is not constant, the articles can be stopped at a predetermined position.

Here, the device for sending out articles to the downstream device may send out the articles based on an article delivery timing signal sent from the downstream device. With this configuration, the articles can be aligned according to the state of the downstream device.

It is preferable to use an AC servomotor as the driving means and a servo controller as the control means. Since the AC servomotor operates faithfully in accordance with the set acceleration / deceleration time constant, the error at the time of starting / stopping is small and the acceleration / deceleration curve is constant. Therefore, it is possible to stop, start, accelerate, and decelerate the product with a small error regardless of the transport speed, and it is possible to more accurately perform the work of arranging the articles at the time of delivery. Also, when it is necessary to change the transport speed or the like due to a change in the type of goods to be delivered or a change in the production line, etc., it is possible to easily respond without changing the hardware part only by changing the setting of the servo controller. it can.

It is preferable that the moving speed detecting means includes a photoelectric sensor at the predetermined position, and detects a moving speed of the conveyed article when the photoelectric sensor detects the presence of the conveyed article. The photoelectric sensor is easy to set up,
Accurate detection is possible.

Further, in the article delivery apparatus according to the present invention, the servo controller includes a programmable machine controller electrically connected to an upstream apparatus and / or a downstream equipment price of the delivery apparatus. .

By providing a programmable machine controller electrically connected to the upstream and downstream devices, for example, by recognizing abnormalities in the upstream and downstream devices,
By controlling the operation, stop, and acceleration / deceleration of the transport means in accordance with the logic programmed in advance, it is possible to make the same determination as when a worker is arranged in the transfer device.

[0012]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an article delivery apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the configuration of the article delivery device of the present invention. The article delivery device 1 includes an apparatus main body 11, a small conveyor belt 12 that conveys products on the main body 11, an AC servomotor 13 that drives the conveyor belt 12, and a control unit 14 that controls the operation of the servomotor 13. Sensor 1 that recognizes the existence of a product to be delivered and its moving speed
5 and so on. A controller 14a dedicated to the AC servomotor 13 is provided in the control unit 14, and this controller 14a is provided by a PMC (Programmable Machine Co.).
ntroller: Built-in programmable machine controller).

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a state in which products are delivered by the delivery device 1 of the present invention. The product P is sent from the upstream processing device (not shown) to the delivery device 1, and the delivery device 1 adjusts the product delivery timing and sends the product P to the downstream conveyor 2. When the product P gets on the conveyor 12 of the delivery device 1, it is transported to the position of the photoelectric sensor 15. The photoelectric sensor 15 is turned on when detecting the presence of the product P, and the control unit 14 detects the speed of the belt conveyor 12 at the time of the turning-on, or the acceleration of the belt conveyor 12 after a predetermined time has elapsed from the turning-on time. Based on this detection result, the servo controller 14 reduces the transport speed of the conveyor belt 12 at a predetermined deceleration time constant so that the product P stops at the predetermined delivery position 16 and temporarily stops. Next, the conveyor belt is driven again at a predetermined acceleration, and the product P at the delivery position 16 is discharged.

The downstream conveyor 2 connected to the downstream end of the transfer device 1 is provided with a conveyor belt 21a having a partition having substantially the same size as the product P, and the product discharged from the transfer device 1 is provided. Upon receiving P, it is transported to a downstream processing device (not shown). The downstream conveyor 2 can receive the product P in the space defined by the partition 21a, that is, the position of this space is
When the position coincides with the product release position of the delivery device 1, a reception timing signal is sent to the servo controller 14a.

The servo controller 14a releases the product P according to the timing signal. The apparatus 1 successively transfers the products P to the downstream conveyor 2 by repeating the stop and discharge operations.

Here, since the interval between the products sent from the upstream device to the transfer device 1 is not constant, the position of the next product at the time when the previous product is sent to the downstream conveyor 2 is various. is there. Therefore, after the conveyor 12 of the transfer device 1 stops temporarily and discharges the previous product to the downstream conveyor 2, when the photoelectric sensor 15 detects the presence of the next product (when the sensor is turned on), the product concerned Whether the product is accelerating or moving at a constant speed depends on the interval between products sent from the upstream device to the transfer device 1. In the present invention, the control unit determines whether the product passing through the photoelectric sensor 15 is accelerating, moving at a constant speed, and at what acceleration or speed the product is moving. Adjust the deceleration time constant setting accordingly,
A stop command is issued to the AC servomotor to stop the product at the same position (stop position 16) every time. As described above, since the AC servomotor operates faithfully according to the set acceleration / deceleration time constant due to its characteristics, the error of the stop accuracy is controlled within several millimeters in response to the stop command, and the product is accurately positioned at a predetermined position. It is possible to stop.

Further, the servo controller used in the present invention has a built-in PMC, and the PMC is electrically connected to an upstream device and / or a downstream device (including the conveyor 2). Therefore, the state of the upstream and / or downstream device is electrically recognized by the logic pre-programmed in the PMC, and the same judgment as various judgments (response at the time of abnormality, etc.) conventionally performed manually. Automatically, the operation such as operation / stop of the transfer device can be advanced.

When the delivery speed of the product is changed by changing the type of the product to be conveyed, or by changing the production line, the hardware portion is not changed.
This can be done simply by changing the set value of the servo controller.

[0019]

As described above, according to the article delivery apparatus of the present invention, it is possible to automatically perform the work of aligning and correcting the position when supplying the article to the downstream apparatus,
Labor saving and improvement of production line safety can be achieved.
In addition, by using the AC servomotor, the product can be transported, stopped, and released with high accuracy. Furthermore, since a small conveyor is used, no space is required for installation, and the equipment can be easily moved. It is possible to cope with a change in the type of the product to be conveyed or a change in the production line without modifying the hardware.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an overall configuration of an article delivery device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an operation of transferring an article from the article transfer apparatus of the present invention to a downstream apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Article delivery apparatus 2 Downstream conveyor 11 Device main body 12 Belt conveyor 13 AC servomotor 14 Control part 15 Photoelectric sensor 16 Article delivery position 21a Partition

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A conveying means for conveying an article, a driving means for driving the conveying means, a stop and a driving of the driving means,
An article delivery device comprising: a control means for controlling acceleration and deceleration; and a moving speed detecting means for detecting a moving speed of the article conveyed by the conveying means at a predetermined position. Controlling the acceleration / deceleration of the driving means based on the moving speed of the article detected by the speed detecting means to temporarily stop the article at a predetermined position, and then sending the article to a downstream device. Characteristic goods delivery device. 2. Sending the article to a downstream device,
2. The article delivery apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the delivery is performed based on an article delivery timing signal sent from the downstream apparatus. 3. The article delivery device according to claim 1, wherein said driving means is constituted by an AC servomotor, and said control means is constituted by a servo controller. 4. The moving speed detecting means includes a photoelectric sensor at the predetermined position, and detects a moving speed of the conveyed article at the time when the presence of the conveyed article is detected by the photoelectric sensor. An article delivery device according to any one of claims 1 to 3. 5. The servo controller according to claim 3, wherein the servo controller comprises a programmable machine controller electrically connected to an upstream device and / or a downstream bid of the transfer device. Article delivery device.