BACKGROUND

Field of the Disclosure

The present disclosure relates to a robot apparatus.

Description of the Related Art

In recent years, in order to meet diversified needs of consumers, production automation at a production site requires a robot apparatus that can produce an article by holding various objects and assembling one object to another object. However, in a case where an article is assembled by a robot apparatus, the relative positions of an object to be operated on by the robot apparatus and an object to be assembled thereto need to be accurately managed in order to increase a chance of assembly success. Therefore, a positioning device that accurately determines the position of the object to be assembled is necessary, but this leads to a cost increase. It is therefore desirable that the chance of assembly success can be increased without using such a special apparatus.

Given these circumstances, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-125904 discusses a related technology. In this technology, a fitting component held by a hand is tilted by a predetermined amount, and one corner portion of the fitting component is inserted into an opening portion of a component to be fitted. Subsequently, the corner portion is brought into contact with an inner surface of the component to be fitted by moving the fitting component in a Y direction. The fitting component is then moved in an X direction therefrom. The corner portion of the fitting component and a corner portion of the opening portion of the component to be fitted can thereby coincide with each other. The tilted fitting component is then returned to the original position, with reference to the coinciding corner portions of both components. This makes it possible to align the position of an inserted surface of the fitting component and the position of the opening portion without using a positioning device, so that the chance of assembly success can be increased.

However, in the technology discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-125904, the relative positions of the fitting component and the component to be fitted are aligned by making the corner portions of the respective components coincide with each other. Accordingly, no issue arises if the corner portions of the fitting component and the component to be fitted are angular. However, it is sometimes difficult to align the corner portions of the respective components if the corner portions are round.

SUMMARY

The present disclosure is directed to a robot apparatus that can increase the chance of article assembly success without using a positioning device, even when objects take various shapes.

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, a robot apparatus that performs a task while maintaining contact between a first object and a second object, includes a robot arm, a force detection unit configured to detect a force, and a control device configured to control the robot apparatus. The control device is configured to tilt the first object by a predetermined amount by operating the robot arm, bring the first object and the second object into contact with each other, bring a part of a first surface of the first object and a part of a first surface of the second object into contact with each other based on a detection value of the force detection unit, and bring a part of a second surface of the first object and a part of a second surface of the second object into contact with each other in a state where the part of the first surface of the first object and the part of the first surface of the second object are in contact with each other.

Further features of the present disclosure will become apparent from the following description of exemplary embodiments with reference to the attached drawings.

