Patent ID: 8371795

Claim:
A workpiece transfer system, the workpiece transfer system comprising: a plurality of cassettes for storing workpieces; at least one workpiece processing apparatus placed at a position opposing the plurality of cassettes; and a multi-joint industrial robot structured to load and unload workpieces to/from the cassettes, the multi-joint industrial robot comprising: a hand part structured to hold a workpiece; an arm part supporting the hand part so as to make the hand part rotatable; and a link mechanism that supports an arm joint part, positioned at a base side of the arm part, so as to make the arm joint part rotatable; wherein the link mechanism is structured to operate in such a manner that a motion trajectory of the arm joint part is a straight line substantially perpendicular to the direction of loading and unloading the workpieces; and the link mechanism comprises a base-side link part supported by a base of the multi-joint industrial robot so as to be rotatable, and an arm-side link part positioned at a side of the arm part while the base-side link part and the arm-side link part are connected by a link joint part; wherein the plurality of cassettes are placed in a row in parallel with the motion trajectory of the arm joint part; wherein the base-side link part and the arm-side link part of the link mechanism carry out expanding and folding motion so that the arm joint part is moved along the motion trajectory for locating the hand part at a position opposing each of the plurality of cassettes; wherein a rotation center of the base-side link part of the link mechanism which is disposed on the base is set to be at a position that is shifted toward a side of one of the workpiece processing apparatus and the plurality of cassettes, away from a middle position between the workpiece processing apparatus and the plurality of cassettes; wherein the motion trajectory of the arm joint part is formed to be located at a shifted position that is shifted toward a same side as rotation center of the base-side link part away from the middle position; the link joint part gets folded to protrude in a direction opposite to the shifted position at a time of expanding and folding motion of the link mechanism and at the time of loading and unloading the workpieces to/from the plurality of cassettes and the workpiece processing apparatus according to operation of the link mechanism.