Abstract: A flexible wrist mechanism for industrial robots, manipulators and the like, the wrist mechanism having in series two or more wrist articulates each consisting of at least a first wrist element located on a drive side and a second wrist element located on a driven side swingably relative to the first wrist element, characterized in that the wrist mechanism includes a coupling shaft disposed perpendicular to the axes of the first and second wrist elements and connecting the first and second elements pivotally relative to each other; a reducer interposed between the second wrist element and the coupling shaft to restrict the pivoting angle of the second wrist element relative to the first wrist element; and a rotation transfer mechanism rotationally connecting the coupling shafts of adjacent wrist articulates.

Abstract: A control system for a direct teaching/playback type robot, including a low spring constant member connected to a drive source for driving a robot element through a frictional coupling. The control system basically includes a first incremental position detector provided between the robot element and the frictional coupling for detecting the rotational position of the robot element, a second incremental position detector connected to the drive source for detecting the rotational position of the drive source, and a switch for selectively connecting the output terminals of the first and second position detectors to a drive source controller in teaching and playback modes of operation, respectively.

Abstract: A method of interlockingly controlling a robot and a positioner which includes operating manually or automatically a teaching roller along a weld line of a workpiece fixed to a rotatable positioner, teaching the position of the weld line, storing the positional data thereby obtained, and performing a welding operation automatically on the basis of the stored data during playback, in which, during teaching, the positioner is rotated at any desired speed, the robot is moved manually or automatically while maintaining a welding torch in a proper welding position with respect to the weld line and positional data on each shaft of the robot and that on a rotating shaft of the positioner are stored each time the teaching roller advances by a predetermined distance, while during playback the welding speed is kept constant by controlling the moving speed of the robot and the rotating speed of the positioner simultaneously while controlling a relative positional relation between the positioner and the robot on the basi

Abstract: A method of multi-layer welding in which the welding operation is performed according to a path of welding defined by interpolating a plurality of instructed points by a suitable line, the method being characterized by storing in a memory device the coordinates actually passed by a welding torch in the welding operation of the first layer at the instructed points and determining the welding path of the second and succeeding layers by adding a predetermined amount of shift to the actual detected coordinates stored in the memory device at the instructed points and interpolating the shifted coordinates by a suitable line.