Here’s an add-on for robot programming that you can use to create conveyor tracking applications. Unzip and copy add-on under C:\Users\%USER%\Documents\Visual Components\4.X\My Commands and launch VC. You should see three new statements on program tab:
Statements are as follows:
CT_WaitPart statement is used to wait until a part arrives on a conveyor sensor. Select base which you want to attach to part and select sensor component you want to use (must be “Conveyor Sensor” component from ecat). After part arrives on sensor base is attached at its origin and program execution proceeds.
CT_TrackPart statement can be used to make robot follow the part with attached base. Tracking can be stopped either with reset statement, timer or a certain condition (e.g. joint exceeds some value). Select base you want to track and stop mode. “Timer” property affects only on stop mode “Timer” and “Condition” property affect only “Condition” mode.
CT_Reset statement detaches selected base from part so you can grab that part. Grabbing part with base attached to it would cause incorrect tool/base configuration on robot and motion would stop.
Attached demo layout and video show a basic workflow and example case on how this add-on can be used.
This add-on just tracks one piece at a time. Tracking more parts could be possible but it would require some more coding and at the moment I don’t have time to look into that. Let’s see if I revisit this add-on at some point.
No this add-on doesn’t work with Kuka.Sim 4.X. Kuka.Sim 4.X has completely customized program editor and executors and most of the VC add-ons for robots do not work.
hey again!
Do you know how can I simulate a conveyor tracking system in Kuka.Sim?
I wanna define parent component and parent behaviour to “conveyor tracking base” component. But these areas are disable so I can’t do it. THe program says that “Editing is not allowed when all the interfaces of the components are disconnected”. But I’m sure I defined an interface. Do you have any idea about what should I do next?
Thanks in advance
I don’t know if you can set up conveyor tracking in Kuka.Sim. That’s because Kuka.Sim 4.X uses RCS controller to get accurate motion simulation. And that means that any motion related options should be configured similar to how it’s done on real KRC controller. And I don’t know if they’ve added support for conveyor tracking yet as RCS and KRL support in Kuka.Sim is still quite recent feature. You could ask Kuka’s support about this topic (simulation.robotics.de@kuka.com).
Hi there,
I’ve unzipped the add-on in the folder that you said, at the time i’m trying to use it, VC says that can’t find the files, do you know something about it? How can i solve it? Thank you.
There was a bug where non-ascii characters in “My Commands” path (user name) broke the file references. This is actually somewhat common problem in VC API and we add-on developers should always decode file path gotten from VC API to “utf-8”. In this case the API method is vcCommand.getCommandPath().
Anyway I fixed the bug and uploaded new version in the original post. I fixed another minor issue in the add-on as well. Please try it out and see if it works this time.
Well, if it still doesn’t work, then it’s probably because he’s no longer available for the OLP version, because the new robot programming uses a new programmer, if you really want to use it, you can refer to this post, or use the Conveyor Tracking Base that comes with the library.
Add-on should work in non-OLP 4.9. If your default documents folder is configured as OneDrive folder then the correct location for the python add-ons is here:
C:\Users\%USER%\OneDrive - Visual Components\Documents\Visual Components\4.10\My Commands\Python 2\
OK I uploaded a new version ConveyorTracking_25112024.zip on the original post. Please try with that.
It seems that old code didn’t quite work in 4.9. Buttons were created but icons were bugging out so the buttons were invisible. Small change in the init file fixed that.
