JPS5854217B2 - Arrival position control device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a reach position control device for automatically landing a cutting machine such as an excavator or a crane at a position where digging or cutting is to be started.

Traditionally, raw materials such as iron ore have been piled up in piles in the raw material yards of steel mills, and when raw materials are needed, the computer system that controls the entire raw material yard has instructions to remove the piles (hereinafter referred to as A predetermined amount of raw material (referred to as a pile) is cut out by the glue cremer and sent to a furnace or the like that requires the raw material.

A reclaimer is a mechanical device in which a plurality of shovels are arranged in a circumferential manner, and as they rotate, they scoop up raw materials from a pile, drop them onto their own belt conveyor, and transport them.

This equipment is operated by humans, and it is difficult to automatically land the wheels with the multiple shovels mentioned above at the required positions on the pile, making it difficult to automate this raw material cutting work. I've been doing it.

In contrast, a detector consisting of an ultrasonic transmitter and receiver is attached to the tip of the reclaimer, and the distance from the pile removal reclaimer is detected from the time it takes for the transmitted ultrasonic pulse to be reflected back. Research is being conducted into a method that uses information to control landings on the surface of piles gently.

With this method, due to the resolution limitations of the ultrasonic detection system, it is not clear which part of the pile the distance is being measured, and there is no compensation that the reclaimer is truly pointing at the starting point of cutting. Practical implementation was difficult.

On the other hand, a method has been put into practical use in which a TV camera is installed at the tip of the reclaimer and a worker remotely controls the land from a remote control room. A single reclaimer must be operated by a human until it lands on the ground, requiring a high degree of skill on the part of the workers, and it has not been possible to achieve a significant improvement in work efficiency.

In contrast to these conventional methods, the present invention allows the reclaimer to automatically land by simply indicating the desired landing point on the TV camera screen, significantly improving work efficiency. There is.

A device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below.

That is, in FIG. 1, 1 is a conventionally used reclaimer main body, 2 is a rail on which the reclaimer runs, 3 is a pile of raw materials, 4 is a rotary wheel for cutting out raw materials, 5, 6 is a television camera, and 7 is an ultrasonic transmitter/receiver.

FIG. 2 is an overall configuration diagram of the control system, and 8 and 9 are azimuth control devices that control the azimuths of the television cameras 5 and 6, respectively;
10 is a device for measuring the distance to a target point according to the principle described below; 11 and 12 are monitor televisions that display images from television cameras 5 and 6, respectively; 15 is a device for measuring the distance of an object from a signal from the ultrasonic transceiver 7; and 16 is a control device for controlling the entire reclaimer.

Next, the operation of the apparatus of this invention will be explained.

In FIG. 1, first, the reclaimer body 1 is given approximate positional information of the pile 3 from a central computer, travels on the rail 2, and stops at a predetermined position relative to the pile 3.

At this time, the mountain pile 3 is almost within the field of view of the television cameras 5 and 6.

The television camera monitors 11 and 12 and operating levers 13 and 14 shown in FIG. 2 are installed in the central control room.

The television camera is placed on a rotating table as shown in Figure 3.
They are installed on the reclaimer main body while maintaining a predetermined positional relationship with each other.

This television camera is powered by servo motors 17 and 18 in Fig. 3,
and 19 and 20 respectively change the elevation angle and the horizontal angle so that the direction of the optical axis of the television camera can be controlled.

These servo motors are also equipped with shaft encoders to read their respective rotation angles.
(not shown).

In FIG. 3, 21 and 22 indicate the field of view of the television camera monitors 11 and 12, respectively, and cross marks 23 and 24 are projected therein, respectively.

This cross mark can be manually moved within the field of view using operating levers 13 and 14 shown in FIG. 2, which are placed together with the monitor in the central control room.

When Imari Claimer 1 stopped, the monitor displayed Fig. 3 2.
Suppose that a pile of mountains is reflected as shown in 1.22.

If for some reason the part of the pile you want to see does not come into view, manually operate the servo motor 17 from the central control room. '18, 19, and 20 can be moved to change the field of view of the television camera (not shown).

Assuming that the point at which Imari claimer 1 should first start cutting is P in Fig. 3, the cross marks 23 and 24 can be moved within the field of view 21 and 22 using the operating levers 13 and 14 to match point P on the screen. .

This work is carried out by a worker in the central control room, and a signal indicating that the matching work has been completed is sent to the television camera distance measuring device 10 shown in FIG.

The coordinates of the cross marks 23 and 24 with respect to the center of field of view (on the optical axis) o and o' are read by the measurement 10,
The azimuth control devices 8 and 9 are driven based on the coordinate values, and the azimuths of the two television cameras are controlled so that the optical axes are aligned with the cross mark or point P of the stack.

When the azimuth of the television camera at this time is read by the azimuth control device 8゜9, since the distance l between the television cameras is known, the distance between the center of the television cameras and point P can be determined by triangulation. It is immediately determined by the measuring device 10.

Distance information between point P and the center between the television camera, that is, a predetermined point on the reclaimer, is given to the reclaimer control device 16 together with azimuth information, and the tip of the reclaimer is determined by the error in the distance Mif measurement by the television camera. It is possible to reach one point P of the stack within an allowable range.

Here, if the ultrasonic distance measuring means is used together with the above triangulation method when the reclaimer 1 approaches point P, the landing accuracy of the reclaimer 1 can be further improved.

After the reclaimer tip approaches point P, an ultrasonic pulse is emitted from the ultrasonic transceiver 7, and a reflected pulse from the pile is detected.

The time delay of this reflected pulse is measured as the distance to the pile by an ultrasonic distance measuring device.

Based on this measured value, the reclaimer control device 16 can land the front end (wheel portion) of the reclaimer body approximately near the point P and start automatic cutting work.

FIG. 4 shows a specific circuit configuration of the distance measuring device using the above-mentioned television camera.

In FIG. 4, 25° 26 is a shaft encoder, 27 is an elevation angle control circuit, and 28 is a horizontal angle control circuit.

The azimuth control device 8 shown in FIG. 2 is constructed by the above 25, 26° and 27.28 degrees.

29 is a television camera control circuit, 30 is a video signal processing circuit, 31 is a monitor control circuit, 32 is a two-dimensional potentiometer, 33 is a cross mark coordinate reading circuit, and 34 is an arithmetic circuit.

The distance measuring device 10 shown in FIG. 2 is constituted by the above-described components 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, and 34.

Next, the operation of this device will be explained.

Scanning of the videocon surface of the television camera 5 is performed by a television camera control circuit 29, the video signal from the camera is subjected to appropriate processing by a video signal processing circuit 30, and the video is displayed on a monitor by a monitor control circuit 31.

The monitor control circuit 31 has a built-in circuit for displaying the cross mark on the monitor, and the position of the cross mark is determined by the output voltage of the two-dimensional potentiometer 32.

If the operating lever 13 is now moved in two-dimensional directions, the output voltages of the potentiometers corresponding to each direction will change, and the position of the cross mark can be freely controlled.

The position of this cross mark with respect to the center of the visual field is detected by the coordinate reading circuit 33, and the elevation angle and horizontal angle control circuit 2
7 and 28, and are controlled by servo motors 17 and 18, respectively, so that the cross mark coincides with the center of the field of view (on the optical axis).

The rotation angle at this time is 25°2 for each shaft encoder.
6 and sent to the arithmetic circuit 34.

Here, the rotation angle data from another television camera (not shown) is also input, the distance is calculated according to the above triangulation method, and the result is outputted along with the azimuth information.

In the above embodiment, when measuring distance using two television cameras, the optical axis of the television camera was controlled by a servo motor so as to coincide with one point P of the pile. It is also possible to use a method in which the azimuth angle for aiming at point P is determined from the coordinate values of point P) and the distance between the lens of the television camera and the photocathode of the videocon, and triangulation is performed from this.

Furthermore, although distance measurement using ultrasonic waves was used in the above embodiment,
Of course, distance measuring means other than ultrasonic waves may be used.

Furthermore, although the above embodiment was used to control the landing of a beam crane, it is also fully applicable to the control of other machines, such as excavating machines.

As described above, according to the device according to the present invention, a worker in the central control room can automatically land the reclaimer and start cutting by simply instructing the desired landing position on the TV monitor using remote control, thereby making it possible for the reclaimer to automatically land and start cutting. There is a remarkable improvement in sexual performance.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the overall configuration of a device according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the measurement control device of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is an explanation explaining the operation of the device. FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a distance measuring device using a television camera. In the figure, 1 is the reclaimer body, 2 is the rail, 3 is the pile of raw materials, 4 is the wheel, 5 and 6 are the television cameras, 7 is the ultrasonic transmitter/receiver, 8 and 9 are the direction control devices, and 10 is the television camera. Distance measuring device, 11° 12 is TV monitor, 13
, 14 is an operating lever 15 is an ultrasonic distance measuring device, 16 is a reclaimer control device, 17, 1B is a servo motor, 2
5 and 26 are shaft encoders, 27 and 28 are elevation angles,
and a horizontal angle control circuit; 29 is a television camera control circuit;
30 is a video signal processing circuit, 31 is a monitor control circuit, 3
2 is a two-dimensional potentiometer, 33 is a coordinate reading circuit, 3
4 is an arithmetic circuit. Note that the same or corresponding parts in the figures are indicated by the same reference numerals.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1 A pair of television cameras placed at a predetermined distance and arranged to show the same object, a pair of monitors that display the images captured by these television cameras, and a prescribed display on the monitors. a device for projecting a mark and manually moving the mark in a two-dimensional direction; A coordinate reading circuit that reads the coordinates of a predetermined position; and an azimuth control device that detects the azimuth of a line connecting the predetermined position on the object and the optical center of the television camera based on the coordinate values of the coordinate reading circuit; It is equipped with an arithmetic circuit that measures the distance to the predetermined position based on the azimuth of the television camera and the distance between the two television cameras, and uses the distance information and azimuth information of this arithmetic circuit to cause the predetermined device to reach the predetermined position of the object. Arrival position control device characterized by