METHOD AND DEVICE FOR DETECTING POSITION OF WORKPIECE TAKING FORM OF RECTANGULAR PARALLELEPIPED

PURPOSE: To enable accurately detecting the position of a workpiece taking the from of a rectangular parallelepiped by determining the center point of the rectangular parallelepiped workpiece through the detection of the adjoining edges of the upper surface of the rectangular parallelepiped workpipece by means of sensors mounted on the hand of a handling robot. CONSTITUTION: When the hand 1 of a robot is scanned on a workpiece 2, light beams emitted from edge sensors 4A, 4B and 4C at the arrival of the edge sensors 4A to 4C on the workpipece edges are reflected at three points A, B, C on the edges of the workpiece 2 taking the from of a rectangular parallelepiped, so that the edges are detected. These detected signals are sampled into a robot control device so as to obtain the coordinates of the robot hand 1. The positions of the three points A, B, C are determined from the coordinates. The lengths of the orthogonal sides of the rectangular parallelepiped workpiece 2 are known, the inclinations of these sides are computed form the coordinates of B and C, and since the two sides form a right angle, the center point of the rectangular parallelepiped workpiece 2 is determined.