201 |
Piston supply apparatus and piston supply method |
US14035163 |
2013-09-24 |
US09180592B2 |
2015-11-10 |
Hisayuki Sueoka; Yasuhiko Wakatsuki |
A piston supply apparatus includes a piston gripping portion and a piston supply portion. The piston supply portion includes a connecting rod gripping unit gripping the connecting rod of the piston placed in a preparation area, a guide member abutting against a skirt portion of the piston to match an axial direction of the piston with a predetermined specified direction, a moving unit moving the gripping unit from the preparation area to a supply position in air, and a pivoting unit making the gripping unit pivot such that the piston top portion of the piston in a downward state is set in an upward state. The piston supply apparatus further includes a pressing unit pressing the piston top portion of the piston made to pivot to the upward state against the guide member. |
202 |
Compliant underactuated grasper |
US14552612 |
2014-11-25 |
US09114540B2 |
2015-08-25 |
Mark Claffee; Nicholas Roy Corson |
A grasper includes a base, a finger, a tendon cable and a magnetic breakaway mechanism. The finger has a proximal end connected to the base by a proximal joint. The tendon cable is configured to move the finger relative to the base. The magnetic breakaway mechanism releasably couples the finger to the base. |
203 |
MACHINING APPARATUS |
US14406873 |
2012-06-29 |
US20150190896A1 |
2015-07-09 |
Norio Tanaka |
There is provided a machining apparatus in which movement of a machining point is a little, restriction on the machining operation of an articulated robot is a little and movement of a worker for the teaching operation is a little.The machining apparatus has an articulated robot which is controlled in attitude according to a teaching operation and has a catch instrument for catching a workpiece at an arm tip thereof, and a machining unit equipped at a fixed portion located within an arm reachable zone of the articulated robot, wherein the machining unit has a working tool having a profiling portion where a machining target portion of the workpiece caught by the catch instrument of the articulated robot is pressed according to the attitude control of the articular robot, and a floating mechanism that pushes the working tool in a press direction of the workpiece. |
204 |
Vessel gripping member comprising a removable nose equipped with a mandrel and an ejection plate |
US13753710 |
2013-01-30 |
US09067742B2 |
2015-06-30 |
Yves-Alban Duclos; Denis Cardine |
A member (22) for gripping vessels (16) includes: a support (32) that moves along a transport trajectory of the vessel (16); a nose (38) including a mandrel (40) capable of holding a neck (26) of the vessel (16), the nose (38) being fixed removably to a bottom axial end of the support (32); characterized in that the nose (38) includes an ejection plate (46) which is mounted to slide axially around the mandrel (40) between a cladding position towards which it is elastically returned and in which the mandrel (40) protrudes axially downwards and an uncladding position in which the mandrel (40) is axially retracted above a bottom face of the plate (46). A device for replacing such a gripping member is also described. |
205 |
Gripping device, transfer device with same, and method for controlling gripping device |
US13981120 |
2011-12-29 |
US09067324B2 |
2015-06-30 |
Hirofumi Matsuoka |
A gripping device comprises: a gripping unit for gripping a work; a controller for controlling the gripping operation of the gripping unit; and contact sections attached to the gripping unit contacting the work, the contact sections being adapted to deform following the shape of the work, and to maintain the deformation. The gripping operation of the gripping unit presses the contact sections against the work to cause the contact sections to follow the outside of the work, and grips the work with the shape of the contact sections maintained. After predetermined number of times of gripping operation, the controller changes the positions of the contact points of the contact sections with the work when the work is gripped. As a result, different works having different shapes can be stably gripped and the lifetime of the contact sections can be extended to be longer than that of conventional products. The change, by the controller, in the positions of the points on the work with which the contact sections are in contact when the work is gripped is performed by shifting the contact sections in a plane vertical to the gripping direction. |
206 |
Wrist lock for a storage library |
US13424175 |
2012-03-19 |
US09044864B2 |
2015-06-02 |
Joseph Paul Manes |
Systems and methods are described for fixed rotational positioning of a robotic hand assembly using mechanical wrist locking techniques. A wrist is configured to rotate the hand assembly and point grip components in a desired direction (e.g., for pick and place operations). Tolerances of components of the wrist can accumulate to manifest rotational positioning error. Embodiments include wrist locking techniques for locking the wrist in a desired rotational position. Some implementations couple grip components with wrist lock components in such a way that movement of the grip components causes the wrist lock assembly automatically to move between locked and unlocked states. For example, retracting the grip components pushes a wrist lock latch into an unlocked position (allowing the wrist to rotate). Extending the grip components allows the latch to move to a locked position where it interlocks with an alignment feature to lock the wrist into an accurate, predetermined angle. |
207 |
GRIPPING APPARATUS, ROBOT, AND GRIPPING METHOD |
US14522996 |
2014-10-24 |
US20150115636A1 |
2015-04-30 |
Masahiro SHIOMI |
A gripping apparatus includes a plurality of holding sections. Each of the plurality of holding sections includes a flexible film-like member. The plurality of holding sections are capable of gripping a plurality of different kinds of objects to be gripped having different softness indexes in a range of 3 mm3/gf to 10 mm3/gf. |
208 |
Gripper assembly for moving device |
US13353357 |
2012-01-19 |
US09004846B2 |
2015-04-14 |
Stefano La Rovere; Jia-wei Chiu; Andreas Boettcher; Jeffrey Kyle Werner |
A gripper assembly for use with a moving device is disclosed. The moving device can be a mechanical device such as a robot. The gripper assembly includes a platform and an elongate arm extending from the platform. The elongate arm is in the form of least one elongate member. Each elongate member has a body which has a proximal end and an opposed distal end. A gripping mechanism is rotatably supported relative to the arm, and includes a holder having a pivoting arm pivotably joined to the body in the region of the distal end of the body. An actuator is in operable communication with the pivoting arm to impart pivotable movement to the pivoting arm and rotational movement to said gripping mechanism about a horizontal axis upon actuation of the actuator. The gripper assembly may have a center of mass substantially aligned with a vertical rotation axis of the gripper assembly. |
209 |
NON-CONTACT INTERLOCKING ASSEMBLY |
US13949551 |
2013-07-24 |
US20150026960A1 |
2015-01-29 |
David T. Jones |
An interlocking assembly includes a frame, a first arm coupled to the frame, and a second arm coupled to the frame. The first arm and/or the second arm is moveable between an open position and a closed position, such that the first and second arms overlap to define a first area when the first and second arms are in the closed position. |
210 |
Boom Utilized In A Geometric End Effector System |
US14299297 |
2014-06-09 |
US20150003947A1 |
2015-01-01 |
John SMITH |
A boom has a cylindrical body with a coupling flange at each end. The body is manufactured from a carbon fiber material. During construction of the carbon fiber body, an electronic feedback mechanism is embedded into the carbon fiber. The electronic feedback mechanism may be a simple electronic strain gauge. Optionally, the feedback mechanism may include a fiber optic cable woven into the carbon fiber weave. |
211 |
GLASS RIBBON ENGAGEMENT SYSTEM WHICH INCLUDES A ROBOT TOOLING DEVICE AND A GUIDANCE DEVICE |
US14382907 |
2013-03-07 |
US20140373572A1 |
2014-12-25 |
James William Brown; Shawn Rachelle Markham; Naiyue Zhou; Zepei Zhu |
A glass ribbon engagement system is described herein that includes a robot tooling device with suction cups configured to engage a first side of a glass ribbon, and a guidance device with one or more devices (e.g., air nozzles, cylinder-wheel units) which are configured to apply one or more local forces to a second side of the glass ribbon to shift the glass ribbon towards the suction cups to assist the suction cups in engaging and securing the first side of the glass ribbon. |
212 |
Systems and Methods for Sensing Objects |
US14302273 |
2014-06-11 |
US20140365009A1 |
2014-12-11 |
Nicholas Wettels |
Disclosed is a tactile sensing and integrated vision system that surmounts problems of existing systems. The tactile sensing skin can be formed into any shape, size, or form factor, including large areas. Computer-implemented algorithms can detect position-orientation and force-torque at landmark points for a given object set. The result is a modular sensing system that is highly scalable in terms of price, quantity, size and applications. Such skin technology and associated software can comprise a sensing package that integrates tactile and visual data with accompanying software for state estimation, situational awareness, and automatic control of machinery. The addition of tactile data can serve to constrain and/or augment visual pose estimation methods as well as provide pose estimation to visually occluded objects. |
213 |
Robot hand, robot, and control method for the robot hand |
US13759347 |
2013-02-05 |
US08899647B2 |
2014-12-02 |
Masahiro Shiomi |
A robot hand moved by a robot to grip an object to be gripped includes a plurality of bar-like placing sections on which the object to be gripped is placed, a plurality of plate-like pressing sections paired with the plurality of placing sections and configured to press side surfaces of the object to be gripped, a space adjusting section configured to move the plurality of pressing sections to bring the pressing sections into contact with a plurality of contact sections, a first strain gauge configured to detect a distance between the placing section and the pressing section and an angle of the pressing section with respect to the placing section, and a second strain gauge configured to detect a distance between the placing section and the pressing section and an angle of the pressing section with respect to the placing section. |
214 |
Transformable Adaptive Gripper System |
US13882096 |
2011-10-21 |
US20140292010A1 |
2014-10-02 |
Robert Graupner; Klaus Drechsler; Stefan Schmitt; Jakob Wölling |
An end effector that includes: a flexible container which contains a filler, wherein the filler is switchable between a flowable or deformable state and a rigid or dimensionally stable state, and one or more working elements for gripping, temperature regulation and/or compaction. |
215 |
Automatic Tire Loader/Unloader for Stacking/Unstacking Tires in a Trailer |
US14156399 |
2014-01-15 |
US20140199142A1 |
2014-07-17 |
Tim Criswell |
An automatic tire loader/unloader for stacking/unstacking tires in a trailer is disclosed. In one embodiment, a mobile base structure provides a support framework for a drive subassembly, conveyance subassembly, an industrial robot, a distance measurement subassembly, and a control subassembly. Under the operation of the control subassembly, tires advance through a powered transportation path to an industrial robot which places the tires within the trailer in a vertical stacking pattern or a rick-stacking pattern, for example. The control subassembly coordinates the selective articulated movement of the industrial robot and the activation of the drive subassembly based upon the distance measurement subassembly detecting objects, including tires, within a detection space, dimensions of the trailer provided to the control subassembly, and dimensions of the tires provided to the control subassembly. |
216 |
Clamping mechanism |
US13961679 |
2013-08-07 |
US08740273B2 |
2014-06-03 |
Chang-Xue He |
A clamping mechanism includes a mounting member, three sealing assemblies, three clamping assemblies, and six adjusting valves. The mounting member defines a receiving hole axially and three mounting holes radially, the three mounting holes communicate with the receiving hole. Each sealing assembly includes a top seal and a bottom seal sealing opposite ends of corresponding mounting hole. Each clamping assembly includes a holding member and a piston, a first end of the holding member extends through the axial hole and is received in the receiving hole, the piston is fixed to the holding member and divides the mounting hole into a first chamber and a second chamber. The six adjusting valves respectively communicate with the first chambers and the second chambers of the three mounting holes. |
217 |
GRIPPER OF ROBOT FOR ASSEMBLING VEHICLE |
US13889686 |
2013-05-08 |
US20140132019A1 |
2014-05-15 |
Jung Hoon Kim; Myoung Hoon Shim; Jae Young Choi |
A gripper of a robot for assembling a vehicle is provided, including: a gripper body that extends vertically; a lower grip that bends forward from a lower end of the gripper body and supports a lower end of an assembly object; an upper grip that is hinged at a rear end to an upper end of the gripper body and grips an upper end of the assembly object when rotating forward by extending forward at a front end of the upper grip; a seat that extends and bends rearward from the upper end of the gripper body; a link assembly that is composed of a first link and a second link that connect an upper end of the seat and the upper grip via the link assembly; and a driving unit that rotates the upper grip forward or rearward by transmitting a driving force to the link assembly. |
218 |
END EFFECTOR AND ROBOT |
US14148732 |
2014-01-07 |
US20140125080A1 |
2014-05-08 |
Yoichiro DAN; Yoshiaki KUBOTA |
An end effector includes a holding unit that holds a screw member to be rotatable around the axis line of the screw member, and a rotary unit that is provided on the axis line, moves linearly along the axis line in a condition of being in contact with the head portion of the screw member held by the holding unit, and rotates the screw member around the axis line by rotation accompanying the linear motion. |
219 |
Micro-gripper for Automated Sample Harvesting and Analysis |
US13960805 |
2013-08-07 |
US20140044237A1 |
2014-02-13 |
Jean-Luc Ferrer; Mohammad Yaser Heidari Khajepour; Nathalie Agnes Larive; Xavier Vernede |
The present invention relates to a micro-gripper comprising tweezers, designed to be used for the harvesting of fragile sub-millimeter samples from their production or storage medium. The tweezers may be equipped with removable soft ending elements to prevent the deterioration of the sample. When coupled to a robotic arm, this micro-gripper allows automated flow of operations in a continuous and automated process, from harvesting to sample preparation and analysis. The present invention is particularly used in X-ray crystallography. |
220 |
Shear force detection device, tactile sensor and grasping apparatus |
US13738309 |
2013-01-10 |
US08640551B2 |
2014-02-04 |
Tsutomu Nishiwaki |
A shear force detection device for detecting a shear force includes: a support body including an opening defined by a pair of straight parts perpendicular to a detection direction of the shear force and parallel to each other; a support film on the support body and closing the opening, the support film having flexibility; a piezoelectric part on the support film and extending astride an inside and outside of the opening and along at least one of the pair of straight parts of the opening when viewed in a plane in which the support body is seen in a substrate thickness direction, the piezoelectric part being bendable to output an electric signal; and an elastic layer covering the piezoelectric part and the support film. |