Patent ID: 7996114

Claim:
A workpiece picking device, comprising: a camera adapted to capture an image of a plurality of the same kind of disorderly piled workpieces so that the workpieces are within a field view of the camera; a memory adapted to store the image captured by the camera; a workpiece detecting part adapted to detect one or more workpieces in the image stored in the memory; a workpiece selecting part adapted to select a workpiece to be picked among one or more workpieces detected by the workpiece detecting part; a robot manipulator adapted to pick the workpiece selected by the workpiece selecting part; and a stacked condition judging part adapted to judge whether the stacked condition of the plurality of piled workpieces is changed by the picking operation of the robot manipulator, wherein the camera does not capture an image of the piled workpieces in the next picking operation when the stacked condition judging part determines that the stacked condition of the workpieces is unchanged, at least around a workpiece to be picked in the next operation, in which case the workpiece detecting part detects a workpiece from the image captured by the camera in the previous operation.