Robot system comprising a robot and two devices that can be connected to said robot in an alternating manner, and method for changing said devices

{
  "publication_number": "US10245722B2",
  "country": "US",
  "kind": "B2",
  "title": "Robot system comprising a robot and two devices that can be connected to said robot in an alternating manner, and method for changing said devices",
  "abstract": "The invention relates to a method for changing devices (W 1, D 1; W 2, D 2) which are connected to a robot (R) and which communicate with a robot application (APP), having the following steps: S 2: detecting a disconnection of a communication with a first device (W 1, D 1); S 3: removing an address entry (“MAC 1 /IP 1 ”) for the first device from a communication index (ARP); S 4: establishing communication with a second device (W 2, D 2); and S 5: generating an address entry (“MAC 2 /IP 1 ”) for the second device in the communication index.",
  "claims": [
    "1. A method for exchanging systems connected to a robot, which communicate with a robot application, the method comprising: removing a first system from an arm of the robot and connecting a second system to the arm of the robot, the first and second systems being selectively, alternately attachable to the arm of the robot; detecting an interruption in a communication with the first system; removing an address entry for the first system from a communication directory; establishing communication with the second system; and creating an address entry for the second system in the communication directory.",
    "2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the communication occurs via a PROFINET network.",
    "3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the establishment of the communication with the second system occurs in a fast start-up, in particular a Fast Start Up.",
    "4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the establishment of the communication with the second system occurs within a maximum of 0.75 seconds.",
    "5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the address entry for the first system is removed from the communication directory before the communication with the second system has been established.",
    "6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: detecting a system exchange command from the robot application.",
    "7. The method according to claim 6, wherein the address entry for the first system is removed from the communication directory when a system exchange command from the robot application and the interruption in communication with the first system have been detected.",
    "8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first and second systems exhibit different specific identifiers and identical communication identifiers.",
    "9. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: configuring the communication and the first and second system in advance.",
    "10. A robot system, comprising: at least one robot, at least two systems that can be alternately mechanically connected to an arm of the robot, a robot application, a communication means, and a computer comprising a storage medium including program code that, when executed by the computer, causes the computer to: detect an interruption in a communication with a first system when the first system is removed from the arm of the robot; remove an address entry for the first system from a communication directory; establish communication with a second system when the second system is connected to the arm of the robot; and create an address entry for the second system in the communication directory.",
    "11. A computer program product having programming code stored on a non-transitory machine readable data medium, the programming code configured to, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to: detect an interruption in a communication with a first system that is selectively attachable to an arm of a robot when the first system is removed from the arm of the robot; remove an address entry for the first system from a communication directory; establish communication with a second system that is selectively attachable to the arm of the robot when the second system is connected to the arm of the robot; and create an address entry for the second system in the communication directory.",
    "12. The method according to claim 2, wherein THE PROFINET network is a PROFINET 10 network.",
    "13. The method according to claim 4, wherein the establishment of the communication with the second system occurs within a maximum of 0.55 seconds."
  ],
  "description_excerpt": "The present invention concerns a robot system having a robot and two devices, which can be alternately connected thereto, a method for changing from a device connected to a robot, and a computer program product having a program for executing a method of this type.\n\nWith robot systems having one or more robots, a tool exchange is frequently necessary in the industrial practice, e.g. the exchanging of various grippers having different geometries, kinematics, etc.\n\nAccording to internal practices, a robot application, which can process, in particular, movement commands, for example “open/close gripper” and exchange commands, for example “ exchange gripper 1 with gripper 2,” communicates with the individual tools by means of a PROFINET IO network, such as that defined, for example, in the Norm IEC 61158 and IEC 61784.2.\n\nAccording to prior internal practices, the individual tools are all configured in parallel thereby as their own PROFINET devices or slaves, each being assigned its own IP address and its own name. It is disadvantageous that for this purpose a correspondingly large number of inputs and outputs must be provided, which increases with each additional exchangeable tool, thus increasing the expenditure in terms of configuration and data accumulation. If 64 inputs/outputs are provided for a tool, by way of example, then three interchangeable tools already require 192 inputs/outputs, and the configuration of three different PROFINET devices.",
  "cpc": [
    "B25J 9/16",
    "H04L 29/12028",
    "H04L 61/103"
  ],
  "ipc": [
    "B25J 9/16",
    "H04L 29/12"
  ],
  "assignees": [
    "KUKA Deutschland GmbH"
  ],
  "inventors": [
    "Ovidiu Zurbau"
  ],
  "filing_date": "2011-10-31",
  "publication_date": "2019-04-02",
  "grant_date": "2019-04-02",
  "priority_date": "2010-11-24",
  "application_number": "US-201113885293-A",
  "family_id": "44906016",
  "cited_by_count": 0,
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}