Cartridge transfer robot

Industrial Robot

ISSN: 0143-991x

Article publication date: 1 April 2000

47

Keywords

Citation

(2000), "Cartridge transfer robot", Industrial Robot, Vol. 27 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2000.04927bad.011

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2000, MCB UP Limited


Cartridge transfer robot

Cartridge transfer robot

Keywords: Robots, Storage, LibrariesApplicant: Fujitsu Ltd (JP)Patent Number: US5966266Publication Date; 12 October 1999Title: Cartridge transferring robot for library apparatus, and library apparatus [sic]

The invention relates to a robot used to transfer large numbers of cartridges in a library apparatus which stores, for example, magnetic tape cartridges or optical disk cartridges. It is an object of the invention to provide a robot capable of directly conducting the insertion/extraction or entry/exit of a cartridge between a deck and a hand mechanism, giving multiple functions to the hand mechanism, thus obtaining reduction of size and cost of the library apparatus. The apparatus includes a storage rack for cartridges each accommodating a storage medium, a cartridge entry/exit station, and a deck for carrying out access to the storage medium within the cartridge. The robot is composed of a picker section including a hand mechanism for gripping the cartridge, and a moving mechanism for moving the picker section up to a given position, the hand mechanism comprising: a pair of upper and lower hand members made to come vertically into contact to grip the cartridge; a hand base to which the pair of upper and lower hand members, respectively [sic]; a cam interposed between the pair of upper and lower cam followers to adjust the separation between them, to make the pair of upper and lower hand members take opening and closing actions while counteracting the biasing force of the biasing mechanism; and a drive mechanism for rotationally driving the cam.

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