Robot Simulation
With Visual Components products robotic and work cell equipment can be fully simulated in a cooperative environment. There is no longer a need for separate programs to simulate robots and factory equipment, as the Visual Components software enables robots from many manufactures to be simulated in a collaborative fashion.
By utilising Visual Components the following robotic functionality can be achieved:
- Using the extensive and ever expanding equipment model library allows your robotic work cell to be built in minutes.
- Allows for robotic programs to be created and tested without the potential of damaging the robotic hardware.
- Check reachability and select suitable robot and tools.
- Simulate cooperating robots.
- Check collisions and near misses.
- Simulate other equipments like conveyors, grippers and servo guns.
- Visualise robot motions and send your layout proposal to customers or colleagues.
- Simulate external TCP.
The Visual Components simulation package encompasses an electronic library of components, which can be accessed via the Internet. The library contains many robot models and it is continually growing. The current library contains robots from the following manufactures: ABB, Comau, Epson, Fanuc, Kawasaki, Kuka, Motoman, Reis, Staubi, Toshiba, Tricept.
If the robot model that you require is not in library, then you can use the free robot wizard add-on to create a model of the robot. This add-on allows the user to enter the robot parameters such as link lengths and min / max joint angles, etc. The wizard then generates a robot of the correct size and dimensions, including the kinematics and other behaviours required to make a fully functioning Visual Components Robot model.
Fast collision checking and reachability algorithms aid in layout planning and process optimisation. Motion paths can be held in place while equipment is repositioned and stepping through the process to check for collisions or near misses. All robot positions are represented by Robot Position Frames in the 3D world which are colour coded to easily show reachablity.
Programming of robots is done with RSL(Robot Sequence Language). RSL, inspired by the RRSII standard, is an easy-to-use language for programming robots. The RSL can be directly connected to the robot controller, virtual controller or softPLC via a COM interface and RRS2 constructs. Using the native robot programming language and Virtual Robot Controller the process, digital I/O and program cycle times can be checked to a higher degree of accuracy. Alternatively the RSL program can be post processed into the native robot language.
The standard Visual Components system provides a variety of different kinematic behaviours for simulating a wide range of robot types: Articulated, Cartesian, Delta, Parallellogram and Scara. In addition to standard kinematics provided by the system, you can build customised algorithms in Python.
The key benefits of using Visual Components to simulate robotic systems are:
- Off-line cell development
- Reduced commissioning lead times
- Avoid expensive last minute fixes to layouts
- Risk reduction through animation and simulation
- Cycle time validation
Please do not hesitate to contact SimX for information about robotics simulation. Contact information
