Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US6751526?ie=ISO-8859-1
Timestamp: 2014-12-25 14:02:42
Document Index: 36661508

Matched Legal Cases: ['art. 5', 'ART0', 'ART1', 'ART0', 'ART1', 'ART0', 'ART1', 'ART0', 'ART1', 'ART0', 'ART4', 'ART0', 'ART1', 'ART2', 'ART3', 'ART4', 'ART0']

Patent US6751526 - Method for describing robot structure and part of robot - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inAdvanced Patent SearchPatentsA method for describing the structure of a robot representing robot parts as an assembly of elementary structures which is based on the skeletonic representation, a robot structure and a robot part. The parts CPCi are robot parts making up a robot. The connecting information CONNECTi is represented by...http://www.google.com/patents/US6751526?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US6751526 - Method for describing robot structure and part of robotAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS6751526 B2Publication typeGrantApplication numberUS 09/135,973Publication dateJun 15, 2004Filing dateAug 18, 1998Priority dateAug 22, 1997Fee statusPaidAlso published asCN1085577C, CN1209377A, DE69837580D1, EP0899639A1, EP0899639B1, US20020062176Publication number09135973, 135973, US 6751526 B2, US 6751526B2, US-B2-6751526, US6751526 B2, US6751526B2InventorsMasahiro FujitaOriginal AssigneeSony CorporationExport CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (12), Non-Patent Citations (4), Classifications (11), Legal Events (9) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetMethod for describing robot structure and part of robotUS 6751526 B2Abstract A method for describing the structure of a robot representing robot parts as an assembly of elementary structures which is based on the skeletonic representation, a robot structure and a robot part. The parts CPCi are robot parts making up a robot. The connecting information CONNECTi is represented by a symbol �-� specifying serial connection to a previous elementary structure and a symbol �;n� specifying connection to the elementary structure n elementary structures before. The shape information jSHAPEi, is represented by straight lines by a vector jpi, and the coordinate transformation to the next elementary structure at the terminal point of iPARTj is given by the transformation matrix jRi.
What is claimed is: 1. A method for describing a structure of a robot comprising:
a step of resolving a controllable and physically moveable robot part including a configurable physical component CPCi into J elementary structures PARTj; and a step of specifying the robot part, including information about a mass/weight of the part, in a sequence of the elementary structures by three dimensional connection information CONNECTi and shape information jSHAPEi made up of a vector jPi and a transformation matrix jPi, which is at least a three by three matrix. 2. The method according to claim 1 wherein the initial coordinate point of the next part is given by the terminal point of a connection plane of the part.
overall control means; and a plurality of parts configurable physical components CPC containing electronic parts including at least one of an actuator and a sensor for measuring a pre-set physical quantity; the overall control means doing overall recognition and control by shape information for determining a shape of the parts, motion information necessary for stating a motion of the parts, information on characteristics of the electronic parts housed in the parts, and connection information specifying a connection status of the parts, wherein parts CPCi are composed of J elementary structures PARTj and the connection information thereof, the connection information is CONNECTi, the shape information of the elementary structures PARTj is jSHAPEi, dynamic information of the elementary structures PARTj is jDYNi and functional information of the elementary structures PARTj is jFUNCi, the connecting information CONNECTi is represented by a symbol �-� specifying serial connection to a previous elementary structure and a symbol �;n� specifying connection to the elementary structure n elementary structures before, the shape information jSHAPEi is represented by a vector jPi of a straight line and coordinate transformation to a next elementary structure at an end point of iPARTj is given by a transformation matrix jRl, the dynamic information jDYNi is comprised of a vector jsi to a center of mass jGi of iPARTj represented by a coordinate system jΣl of iPARTj, an inertia matrix jIi centered about mass jml, jGi and information jai which gives a direction of motion at a beginning point of iPARTj, in which a torque and the direction in which is generated the function positioned at the beginning point is accorded by the function information jFUNCi of the elementary structures PARTj, and the functional information jFUNCi is the connection information specifying the connection state of parts. 4. A robot part comprising:
storage means for storing three dimensional information on physical characteristics of a first part, including information about a mass/weight of the first part, which is controllable and physically moveable and connected in a sequence to a second part; and means for retrieving the information stored in said storage means to control movement of the first part based on the connection sequence and independent of a control of the movement of the second part. 5. The robot part according to claim 4 further comprising control means.
resolving a controllable and physically moveable robot part into elementary structures; and specifying the part by specifying connection information via a three by three matrix, information about a mass/weight of the part, and shape information, the shape information including at least six elementary structures, information concerning a length of an elementary structure and information concerning how to move the structure to connect to an end of another elementary structure. 12. A robot apparatus comprising:
a means for overall control; and a plurality of controllable and physically moveable parts housing an electronic component for measuring a pre-set physical quantity; wherein the overall control means performs overall recognition and control using, for each part, shape information, motion information, information concerning a housed electronic component, and connection information; the parts include an elementary structure; and the elementary structure includes connection information, shape information, dynamic information and functional information, such that the connection information includes a serial connection to a previous elementary structure, the shape information includes a straight line vector and a transformation matrix, which is at least a three by three matrix, having information concerning how to move the structure connected to an end of the previous elementary structure, the movement being independently controllable from a movement of the previous structure, the dynamic information includes inertia information for the structure, and the functional information includes operation information on the housed electronic component. 13. A robot apparatus comprising:
a hub; controllable and physically moveable component parts each having an address that includes a reference to the hub; a bus controller that determines a connection sequence that includes a matrix which is at least a three by three matrix by serially associating the addresses of the component parts using the matrix; and a controller that uses information about a mass/weight of at least one of the component parts to control the parts so that movement of a first one of the parts is controllable independently of a second one of the parts to which the first part is connected using the connection sequence. 14. The robot apparatus of claim 13, wherein the component parts each further comprise:
shape information that includes a straight line vector; a transformation matrix having information concerning how to move the component parts; and dynamic information including inertia information for the component parts. 15. The robot apparatus of claim 14, which includes a detector that detects a form for the component parts based on the connection sequence, the shape information and the dynamic information.
a robot body; a plurality of controllable and physically moveable parts connected to the robot body; a memory device that stores information about a mass/weight of at least one of the parts, information concerning a connection state of the parts, and information concerning at least one of a shape of the body and a shape of the parts using a vector and a transformation matrix, which is at least a three by three matrix; and a processor that operates with the memory device to control the moveable parts so that movement of a first one of the parts is controllable independently of a second one of the parts to which the first part is connected. 17. The robot apparatus of claim 16, wherein the memory device stores inertia information for the component parts.
a robot body; a plurality of controllable and physically moveable robot parts connected to the robot body; a plurality of symbols each representing one of the robot parts; a plurality of serial connection symbols each representing a serial connection between two parts; a branch connection symbol that represents a branch connection among the parts; and a controller that controls movement of the robot parts using the serial connection symbols, mass/weight information for at least one of the parts and the branch connection symbol.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a robot structure describing method for representing parts of a robot apparatus as an assembly of elementary structures basically consisting in the skeletonic representation.
In another aspect, the present invention provides a robot apparatus including overall control means, and a plurality of parts CPC containing electronic parts including an actuator and/or a sensor for measuring a pre-set physical quantity, the overall control means doing overall recognition and control by the shape information for determining the shape of the part, the motion information necessary for stating the motion of the part, the information on characteristics of the electronic parts housed in the parts, and the connection information specifying the connection status of the parts, wherein parts CPCi are composed of J elementary structures PARTj and the connection information thereof, the connection information is CONNECTi, the shape information of the elementary structures PARTj is jSHAPEi, the dynamic information of the elementary structures PARTj is jDYNi and the functional information of the elementary structures PARTj is jFUNCi, and wherein the connecting information CONNECTi is represented by a symbol �-� specifying serial connection to a previous elementary structure and a symbol �;n� specifying connection to the elementary structure n elementary structures before, the shape information jSHAPEi is represented by a vector jpi of a straight line and the coordinate transformation to the next elementary structure at an end point of iPARTj is given by the transformation matrix jRi, the dynamic information jDYNi is comprised of a vector jsi to the center of mass jGi of iPARTj represented by the coordinate system jΣi of iPARTj, an inertia matrix jIi, centered about mass jmi, jGi and the information jai which gives the direction of motion at the beginning point of iPARTj, in which the torque and the direction in which is generated the function positioned at the beginning point is accorded by the function information jFUNCi of the elementary structures PARTj, the functional information jFUNCi is the connection information specifying the connection state of parts. By the overall control means doing overall recognition and control, the robot device can operate as a robot having various functions and also having a structure represented as a set of elementary structures which is based on skeletonic representation.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an illustrative structure of a robot apparatus embodying the present invention.
FIG. 3 shows a simple robot part CPCi and its elementary structures PART0, PART1. In this robot part CPCi, the elementary structure PART0 has a connection point close to the host of the serial bus as a beginning point, and the elementary structure PART1 is coupled to the terminal point of the elementary structure PART0. The elementary structure PART1 has a structural system having freedom of rotation at its beginning point and a portion at its terminal portion for connection to the next part. The connection information CONNECTi of the elementary structure PARTj constituting the robot part CPCi of the above-described structure is represented by a symbol �-� representing serial connection to the directly previous structure and hence is defined as
CONNECTi=(PART0-PART1). FIG. 4 shows a branched robot part CPCi obtained on connecting the elementary structures PART0 to PART4. For simplicity, the elementary structures are simply shown coupled to each other without specifically showing the rotational driving system. The connection information CONNECTi in this case is defined by a form of
CONNECTi={PART0-PART1-PART2:2PART3-PART4}. It is noted that the symbol �:2� has the meaning of directly to an elementary structure two structures at back of the current structure (herein the elementary structure PART0). If the index i of the PARTi is defined as 0, 1, 2, . . . , J−1, in the arraying order, where J is the number of elementary structures, then
CONNECTi={--;2}. In general, the connection information CONNECTi can be represented by the symbol �-� and the symbol �:n�. By defining the representation of the connection of the elementary structures, parts having various shapes or functions can be represented.
SHAPEi={(jpi, j+1Ri), (j=0, ,, J-1). It is noted that the number of j is matched to the number of the elementary structure determined by the connection information CONNECTi. The transformation matrix j+1Ri is a 3�3 matrix and represented by nine elements. However, in view of constraint in representing the coordinate rotation, the transformation matrix can be represented in a known manner by three perimeters. Therefore, the shape information of the elementary structure of the skeletonic representation is constituted by three elements of the vector jpi and the three elements necessary to generate the transformation matrix, totalling at six elements.
jMOTMODEi={(jr0 i, jr1 i, jr2 i), (jpa0 i, jpa1 i, jpa2 i)}. In general, these rotational axis jrki and the translational axis jpaki (k=0,1,2) are vectors represented by the coordinate system pf the elementary structures PARTj. If these are all 0 vectors, the vector represents immobilization.
JMOTMODEi={(jr0 i, , ), (, , )} may be defined to indicate that there is only one degree of freedom.
(i) the connecting information CONNECTi is represented by a symbol �-� specifying serial connection to a previous elementary structure and a symbol �;n� specifying connection to the elementary structure n elementary structures ahead.
Although the connection information is represented in the present embodiment by symbols �-�, �:n�, other symbols may also be used. Among other known methods for representing the connecting information is a data structure representing the tree structure. It is also possible to give a definition by defining the set of beginning points and a set interconnecting a beginning point and an en point for each beginning point.
In the present embodiment, the shape is given by the skeletonic representation. A parallelepiped may also be defined by adding a vector jwidthi which gives the width of a part and a vector jheighti which gives its height to the vectir jpi which gives the length of the part. There may also be a method in which a vector jstarti which gives the shape of a sectional plane normal to the vector jpi as a start point and a function which gives a distance r from jpi in the coordinate system having a positive angle w in the counterclockwise direction and data corresponding to compression of the function by a suitable method is had as representation. This is shown in FIG. 6 in which compression is by sampling at an interval of 10� and modulated by ADPCM.
CONNECT={0-1-2-3-} while the shape information SHAPE is 0  p = ( 0 , 0 , 60 ) , 1  R = [ 1 , 0 , 0 0 , 0 , 1 0 , - 1 , 0 ] 1  p = ( 0 , 16 , 0 ) , 2  R = [ 1 , 0 , 0 0 , 1 , 0 0 , 0 , 1 ] 2  p = ( 0 , 0 , 18.5 ) , 3  R = [ 0 , 0 , - 1 0 , 1 , 0 1 , 0 , 0 ] 3  p = ( 0 , 0 , 55 ) , 4  R = [ 1 , 0 , 0 0 , 1 , 0 0 , 0 , 1 ] 4  p = ( 0 , 0 , 47.5 ) , 5  R = [ 1 , 0 , 0 0 , 1 , 0 0 , 0 , 1 ] The dynamic information jDYNi is
0S=(0, 0, 35)(m, m),0 m=128(g) 0I=[59477, 59477, 14421](g�mm2) 1S=(0, 0, 14.5)1 m=0.6 1I=[4.2, 4.2, 7.5] 2S=(0, 0, 6),2 m=37 2I=[9085, 6476, 1151] 3S=(0, 0, 21.35),3 m=96
3I=[32437, 32878, 11268] 4S=(0, 0, 21.25),4 m=36 4I=[9037, 9037, 1536] The functional information jFUNCi is
0FUNC={1D=0} 1  FUNC = { 1  D = 1 , Fs = 8000 , Q = 10 , 2  MOTMODE = { ( [ 0 , 0 , 1 ] , ) , ( , , ) } , 1D=5, Fs=8000, Q=10, (−120, +120)} 2  FUNC = { 1  D = 1 , Fs = 8000 , Q = 10 , 2  MOTMODE = { ( [ 0 , - 1 , 0 ] , ) , ( , , ) } , 1D=5, Fs=8000, Q=10, (−120, +120)} 3  FUNC = { 1  D = 1 , Fs = 8000 , Q = 10 , 2  MOTMODE = { ( [ - 1 , 0 , 0 ] , ) , ( , , ) } , 1D=5, Fs=8000, Q=10, (−120, +120)}
4FUNC={1D=7, Fs=8000, Q=1, (,0), (0, 0, 1)}. Patent CitationsCited PatentFiling datePublication dateApplicantTitleUS3703048 *Jan 27, 1971Nov 21, 1972Ideal Toy CorpToy robotUS4391060 *Aug 21, 1981Jul 5, 1983Takara Co., Ltd.Toy robot vehicle assemblyUS4682969 *Sep 27, 1985Jul 28, 1987Mattel, Inc.Reconfigurable vehicle-robot toyUS4765609 *Jan 27, 1987Aug 23, 1988Jerry L. WilsonAutomated boxing machineUS4772831 *Nov 20, 1986Sep 20, 1988Unimation, Inc.Multiaxis robot control having improved continuous path operationUS5073140 *Oct 22, 1990Dec 17, 1991Steven LebensfeldToy action figures and speech and sound effects accessory thereforUS5469512Sep 7, 1993Nov 21, 1995Sony CorporationPattern recognition deviceUS5766077 *May 22, 1996Jun 16, 1998Kabushiki Kaisha BandaiGame apparatus with controllers for moving toy and character thereforUS5963712Jul 3, 1997Oct 5, 1999Sony CorporationSelectively configurable robot apparatusDE4118302A1Jun 4, 1991Dec 12, 1991Fmc CorpVorrichtung und verfahren zum analysieren eines mechanischen mehrkoerpersystemsJPH0919040A Title not availableJPH05245784A Title not available* Cited by examinerNon-Patent CitationsReference1"Efficient computation algorithm for dynamic modelling of tree structure robot arms," Said M. Megahed, 1992, pp. 225-242.2"Optimal Synthesis of Robot Manipulators Based on Global Dynamic Parameters," J.R. Singh and J. Rastegar, 1992, pp. 538-548.3"ROBOPT-Ein System zur Optimierung des Robotereinsatzes in Automatisierungssystemen," Walter Schwinn, 1993, pp. 386-394.4"ROBOPT�Ein System zur Optimierung des Robotereinsatzes in Automatisierungssystemen," Walter Schwinn, 1993, pp. 386-394.Classifications U.S. Classification700/245, 700/247, 700/248, 446/297, 446/268, 446/405, 700/246International ClassificationB25J9/18, B25J9/16Cooperative ClassificationB25J9/1605European ClassificationB25J9/16C1Legal EventsDateCodeEventDescriptionOct 8, 2012SULPSurcharge for late paymentOct 8, 2012FPAYFee paymentYear of fee payment: 8Oct 8, 2012PRDPPatent reinstated due to the acceptance of a late maintenance feeEffective date: 20121008Aug 7, 2012FPExpired due to failure to pay maintenance feeEffective date: 20120615Jun 15, 2012REINReinstatement after maintenance fee payment confirmedJun 15, 2012LAPSLapse for failure to pay maintenance feesJan 30, 2012REMIMaintenance fee reminder mailedSep 26, 2007FPAYFee paymentYear of fee payment: 4Oct 20, 1998ASAssignmentOwner name: SONY CORPORATION, JAPANFree format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:FUJITA, MASAHIRO;REEL/FRAME:009535/0336Effective date: 19981008RotateOriginal ImageGoogle Home - Sitemap - USPTO Bulk Downloads - Privacy Policy - Terms of Service - About Google Patents - Send FeedbackData provided by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services©2012 Google