Robotic assembly apparatus with robot tool for placing a plurality of component parts on a workpiece

Claim 1

A robotic assembly apparatus having a robot tool for placing components in or on a workpiece comprising means (17, 18) for presenting workpieces serially to a placement station (7, 8), means (9, 10) for presenting components to be placed in or on said workpieces to a supply station (6) and means for picking up components from said supply station (6) and placing them into or onto a workpiece at said placement station Ser. No. 07/040,005 and including a plurality of individual grippers (26) each carried by an actuator (27) wherein each gripper is independently operable for the selective pick-up and/or release of components and each actuator is independently movable to a retracted position or an extended position and the actuators are angled with respect to one another whereby their respective gripper may be spaced from one another in a plane orthogonal to the direction of movement of the actuators by an amount dependent upon the angle and the amount of movement of the gripper relative to the tool thereby to position the components relative to one another, means (11, 12, 20, 21) for placing a plurality of components in a predetermined pattern and orientation relative to one another at said supply station, means for placing said components into their correct positions relative to one another, and means for simultaneously placing the plurality of correctly positioned components into or onto said workpiece at said placement station.