Patents by Inventor Akinori YOSHIKAWA

Akinori YOSHIKAWA has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20240091885
    Abstract: A shape sensor is provided for acquiring a shape profile along an extension direction of an existing weld bead, and a control unit includes a welding information acquisition unit for acquiring welding information during formation of an adjacent weld bead when forming the adjacent weld bead at a position adjacent to the existing weld bead, and a defect candidate extraction unit for determining an angle characteristic portion having a base angle equal to or greater than a threshold in the existing weld bead based on the shape profile, determining a welding characteristic portion of the welding information based on the welding information, and extracting the welding characteristic portion corresponding to the angle characteristic portion as a defect candidate by associating the welding characteristic portion with the angle characteristic portion.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 7, 2022
    Publication date: March 21, 2024
    Applicant: KABUSHIKI KAISHA KOBE SEIKO SHO (KOBE STEEL, LTD.)
    Inventors: Yasuto KATAOKA, Eiichi TAMURA, Akinori YOSHIKAWA, Shuo HUANG, Shinji SATO
  • Publication number: 20240051052
    Abstract: In a building step, a base measurement processing of acquiring a measured height by measuring, using a shape sensor, a height of a base at a position where a torch is to be moved when depositing weld beads; a welding condition setting processing of obtaining a planned height of the base at the position where the torch is to be moved from a deposition plan, comparing the measured height acquired in the base measurement processing and the planned height to obtain a differential height, and setting a welding condition in a feedback correction for reducing the differential height; and a correction ratio update processing of performing a selection from a plurality of correction ratios set in advance and updating a correction ratio in the welding condition based on a selected correction ratio are executed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 15, 2021
    Publication date: February 15, 2024
    Applicant: KABUSHIKI KAISHA KOBE SEIKO SHO (KOBE STEEL, LTD.)
    Inventor: Akinori YOSHIKAWA
  • Publication number: 20230311227
    Abstract: A manufacturing system of an additively-manufactured object includes: a torch provided at a robot arm; a measuring unit configured to measure, in a non-contact manner, a shape of a weld bead that is deposited by a shape sensor attached to the torch and output measurement information of at least one of a representative height of the weld bead and a cross-sectional area of the weld bead; a switching unit configured to switch the measurement information output by the measuring unit based on at least one of a shape and position information of a weld bead included in the deposition plan; and a correction unit configured to correct a condition for depositing weld beads based on the measurement information and the deposition plan.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 21, 2021
    Publication date: October 5, 2023
    Applicant: KABUSHIKI KAISHA KOBE SEIKO SHO (KOBE STEEL, LTD.)
    Inventor: Akinori YOSHIKAWA
  • Publication number: 20230302563
    Abstract: A method for manufacturing an additively-manufactured object includes a depositing planning step of creating a depositing plan and a building step of repeatedly depositing the weld beads based on the depositing plan. The building step includes a frame portion building step of building a frame portion and an internal building step of building an internal building portion. The internal building step includes a pre-measurement process of measuring a shape of a base on which the weld bead layer is to be deposited, a deviation amount calculation process of creating a measured profile of the base based on the measured shape of the base, determining a planned profile of the base based on the depositing plan, and calculating a deviation amount of the measured profile with respect to the planned profile, and a pre-correction process of correcting a welding condition of the weld beads.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 21, 2021
    Publication date: September 28, 2023
    Applicant: KABUSHIKI KAISHA KOBE SEIKO SHO (KOBE STEEL, LTD)
    Inventors: Masatoshi HIDA, Akinori YOSHIKAWA
  • Publication number: 20230286074
    Abstract: A system for manufacturing an additively-manufactured object obtained by depositing weld beads based on a depositing plan, the system includes: a torch that is provided on a robot arm; a first measurement unit that is mounted on the torch and that directly measures, in a non-contact manner, a base shape of a base portion on which the weld beads are deposited; a second measurement unit that measures at least one of a current, a voltage, and a filler metal supply rate when the weld beads are deposited, and estimates the base shape from history change thereof; and a control unit that selects at least either of a measurement result by the first measurement unit or by the second measurement unit and corrects control of at least one of the robot arm, the current, the voltage, and the filler metal supply rate.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 7, 2021
    Publication date: September 14, 2023
    Applicant: KABUSHIKI KAISHA KOBE SEIKO SHO (KOBE STEEL, LTD.)
    Inventor: Akinori YOSHIKAWA
  • Publication number: 20230191690
    Abstract: The shape profile of an existing weld bead is measured by a non-contact type shape sensor provided integrally with a welding torch on a robot tip end shaft, midway through molding of a laminate molded object on the basis of a lamination trajectory plan. First geometric information relating to the bead shape is extracted from the shape profile and the target position of the welding torch, second geometric information corresponding to the first geometric information is extracted from the deposition track plan, and an offset amount is calculated from the first geometric information and the second geometric information. In accordance with the offset amount, the deposition track plan is updated by updating at least one of the bead height and the bead width of the weld bead determined by the deposition track plan, and the welding conditions are updated in accordance with the update result of the deposition track plan.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 14, 2021
    Publication date: June 22, 2023
    Applicant: KABUSHIKI KAISHA KOBE SEIKO SHO (KOBE-STEEL, LTD.)
    Inventors: Akinori YOSHIKAWA, Masatoshi HIDA