JP2001072247A - Conveying system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To manually easily and quickly designate and convey an article to be conveyed by picking up an image of the article by a camera, and manually designating a position of the article on the image by an operator. SOLUTION: The images picked up by cameras 8, 9 are successively displayed on a touch panel comprising a display by means of a switch 10, and the operator touches each display image plane to designate coordinates in its three- dimensional space and output the same to a control part 14. In another case, the operator touches only one of a pair of left and right images on the display image plane from the cameras 8, 9, and a position of the other image may be designated by an image recognizing device. A loading and unloading device 16 such as a depalletizer, a picking robot, a truck loader or the like unloads the objective article 6 manually designated among plural articles 2 to load the same to another pallet, conveyor or the like.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a transport system such as a loading / unloading system for loading / unloading a specified article from a plurality of articles.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional unloading system, the position of an article to be unloaded is commanded from a distribution controller to a previously unloaded unloading device. The unloading device has already taught the unloading operation to the designated position, and picks up and unloads the article at the designated position.

[0003] However, in such an unloading system, if there is no command from a distribution controller,
Unable to load / unload goods. In other words, it is not possible to freely specify articles manually and unload them freely at the discretion of the site. Further, even when loading / unloading is performed based on a command from a distribution controller, it is difficult to perform processing and recovery when loading / unloading fails.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to make it possible to manually and easily specify and convey an article to be conveyed manually and quickly (claims 1 to 3).

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A transport system according to the present invention includes a camera for photographing an image of an article, designating means for manually designating the position of the article on the image by an operator, and transporting the designated article. (Claim 1).

[0006] Preferably, the designating means is configured to display an image, and to allow the operator to designate a position on the display image, thereby manually designating the position of the article. A loading / unloading device for selecting and unloading an article whose position is designated from the inside (claim 2).

[0007] Preferably, the designating means comprises a laser pointer for irradiating the article with a laser beam, and means for determining the position of the laser pointer on a photographed image of the article, and the transport device comprises: An unloading device for selecting and unloading an article whose position is designated from a plurality of articles (claim 3).

[0008]

According to the present invention, an image of an article is photographed by a camera, and the position of the article on the image is manually designated by an operator. With this configuration, the position of the article on the image can be easily designated manually, and the position of the designated article can be easily obtained from the image. Therefore, the designated article can be transported by the transport device. For this reason, it is possible to easily convey the specified article manually without the assistance of the distribution controller.

In order to specify the position of the article on the image, the image may be displayed on a monitor or the like and the position on the display image may be specified (claim 2), or the target article itself may be designated with a laser pointer. Alternatively, an image with a laser pointer mark may be taken, and the position of the article on the image may be designated (claim 3). When the position on the display image is designated as in claim 2, the image of the article is displayed, and the position of the article to be conveyed may be designated with respect to the article. Therefore, the designation of the article is extremely easy.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, when an image in which an article itself is designated is shot by a laser pointer and the position of the article on the shot image is obtained, manual operation is performed by simply irradiating the article to be conveyed with the laser pointer. Therefore, an article can be specified very easily.

[0011]

1 to 4 show an embodiment and its modifications.
In FIG. 1, reference numeral 2 denotes a plurality of articles stacked on a pallet 4, which are collectively referred to as a plurality of articles 2. Also 6
Is an article to be unloaded and is referred to as an object 6. 8,9
Is a camera such as a CCD camera so that a plurality of articles 2 can be photographed (so that at least the target article 6 can be photographed).
Deploy. Here, a pair of cameras 8 and 9 are used for stereoscopic viewing.
However, one camera may be arranged, and the position on the captured image may be converted to an actual three-dimensional position on the assumption that the position of the pallet 2 is fixed each time. When one camera is used, a slit light or the like for space coding may be applied.

Reference numeral 10 denotes a switch, and reference numeral 12 denotes a touch panel having a display such as an LCD. For example, by switching the switch 10, images captured by the cameras 8 and 9 are sequentially displayed, and when an operator touches each displayed image, the coordinates in the three-dimensional space are specified and output to the control unit 14. . Alternatively, the operator may touch the displayed image with only one of the pair of left and right images from the cameras 8 and 9, and the designated position in the other image may be performed by an image recognition device (not shown). Reference numeral 16 denotes a loading / unloading device such as a depalletizer, a picking robot, or a truck loader. The loading / unloading device 16 is for loading / unloading a manually designated target article 6 from a plurality of articles 2 and loading it on another pallet or conveyor.

FIG. 2 shows the principle of position recognition in the embodiment. Images of the plurality of articles 2 are taken by the cameras 8 and 9,
The information is displayed on the touch panel 12 alternately, and the position on the touch panel is designated by the operator. Assuming that the designated positions on the display image are A and B, for example, the target article 6 is in the direction of point A when viewed from the left camera 8, and is point B when viewed from the right camera 9.
, And these intersections are the positions of the target article 6. Therefore, a pair of calibrated cameras 8,
By using the coordinates 9, the coordinates of the target article 6 in the three-dimensional space can be easily obtained.

When the coordinates of the target article 6 in the three-dimensional space are determined, the target article 6 can be loaded and unloaded by the control unit 14 by the known loading / unloading device 16. The control unit 14 determines that the unloading operation has been taught for each position of the plurality of articles 2 stacked on the pallet 4.

FIG. 3 shows a second embodiment. 1 and 2, the position of the target article 6 on the image is specified by the operator touching the touch panel 12.
On the other hand, the laser pointer 2
When a plurality of articles 2 are photographed by the cameras 8 and 9 so as to include a laser beam at 0 and include the beam spot, a beam spot from the laser pointer 20 exists on the photographed image. If the spot of the laser beam is recognized by the position recognition device 22, the coordinates of the article 6 to be unloaded in the three-dimensional space can be similarly recognized. That is, the difference between the embodiment shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 and the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 is whether an operator specifies a position on a photographed image or an article whose position is specified by the operator. In both cases, even though the order of the position designation and the photographing is different, the position of the article on the photographed image is manually designated, which is equivalent.

Although FIGS. 1 to 3 show that a target article 6 is designated and unloaded from a plurality of articles 2, in the embodiment, processing is performed by manually designating the position of an article for which depalletization or picking has failed. It can also be used to
FIG. 4 shows such an example. Reference numeral 24 denotes a suction arm such as a depalletizer, which suctions and depallets articles at a position designated by a distribution controller. However, depalletizing may fail when the articles are not properly loaded or when the articles collapse, and in such a case, the articles remain on the pallet 4. FIG. 4 illustrates such a situation. In this case, the target article 6 is designated by the laser pointer 20 and the cameras 8 and 9 are designated.
By recognizing the position in the three-dimensional space, it is possible to suck and convey by the suction arm 24, and the failure of depalletizing can be recovered.
In FIG. 4, the designation of the article 6 using the laser pointer 20 is used. However, the image of the article whose depalletization has failed may be displayed using the touch panel 12, and the position of the target article 6 may be designated using the touch panel.

In the embodiment and the modified example, one article is selected from a plurality of articles. For example, when a large number of pallets 4 are directly stacked, the pallets to be conveyed can be selected by the laser pointer 20 or the touch panel. 12, and the corresponding pallet may be transported. This makes it possible to easily designate a pallet loaded on a pallet, a truck, or the like in a direct-loading warehouse, and convey the designated pallet with an unmanned forklift or the like.

In the embodiment, a pair of cameras 8 and 9 are used to transport an object 6 (here, an object to be unloaded).
Were obtained, but the present invention is not limited to this. For example, when only one camera is provided, only the position of the camera on the image can be specified. However, when the pallet 4 is placed at the same position every time, if the relationship between each position on the pallet 4 and the position on the camera is previously taught, it is possible to unload articles even with the image of one camera. it can. In the case of the embodiment shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the specification of the plurality of articles 2 on the image is not limited to the touch panel 12, and for example, a mouse or a digitizer may be used.

In the embodiment, the following effects can be obtained. (1) Even if there is no controller for physical distribution, goods to be unloaded can be specified. The specification of the article is performed by touching the touch panel or pointing the laser pointer 20 at the target article 6, so that the article can be specified very easily and quickly. (2) The loading / unloading system of the embodiment can be used alone or in combination with the control by the distribution controller. When combined with a physical distribution controller, it is suitable for processing when the physical distribution controller fails to control the loading or unloading, or when there is no data of the product to be unloaded on the physical distribution computer side.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an arrangement of a camera and a touch panel in an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing recognition of an unloading position in the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a relationship between a camera and a laser pointer according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an application of the second embodiment to the processing of an article for which picking has failed in a depalletizer.

[Description of Signs] 2 Plural Articles 4 Pallet 6 Target Article 8, 9 Camera 10 Switch 12 Touch Panel 14 Control Unit 16 Unloading Device 20 Laser Pointer 22 Position Recognition Device 24 Suction Arm

Continued on the front page F term (reference)

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A camera for taking an image of an article,
A transport system comprising: a designation unit for allowing an operator to manually designate a position of an article on the image; and a transport device for transporting the designated article. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the specifying unit displays the image,
By allowing the operator to specify a position on the display image, the position of the article is configured to be manually specified, and the transport device selects the article whose position is specified from among a plurality of articles. The transport system according to claim 1, wherein the transport system is an unloading device for unloading. 3. The designating means comprises a laser pointer for irradiating an article with a laser beam, and a means for determining a position of the laser pointer on a photographed image of the article, and the transport device includes: The transport system according to claim 1, wherein the transport system is an unloading device for selecting and unloading the article whose position is designated from a plurality of articles.