Difference between revisions of "Locator Tutorial: Setting up Locator to work with UR robots"

Revision as of 11:22, 17 January 2019

Users are strongly recommended to read Locator Tutorial: Introduction prior to installation of specific robot interface

1. Prerequisites

Prior to setup, please ensure that your UR controller meets the following criteria:

- CB3.1 or E-series Controller

- System version 3.2 and higher

Click Menu -> About to verify your controller System Version (see figure below):

2. UR Controller Setup

2.1 Set IP Address of Ethernet Port

The first step of the process is to configure the IP address of the Robot Controller.

Using the Teach Pendant, press Menu -> System -> Network:

Amend the IP address and Subnet Mask to match the network configuration of the Locator Vision Controller and click Apply:

3. Locator UR Cap Setup

The Locator UR Interface is available as an URCap and three basic program templates. All of these files need to be copied to the Robot Controller.

As the first step, URCap needs to be installed. Extract the Locator URCap archive (.zip file) to the USB stick and plug it into the Teach Pendant.

Press Menu -> System -> URCaps:

Select the Locator URCap file and click Open:

Locator URCap should appear in the list of active URCaps. As usual, the restart is needed in order to enable functionality of newly installed URCap

As the last step copy all three program templates from USB Stick to the Robot Controller as shown below:

4. Calibration

Robot Camera Calibration is a crucial step in Locator configuration. Accurate calibration guarantees that object positions will be calculated directly in Robot Base coordinates.

4.1 Robot - Camera Calibration

Mount the Scanner firmly, ensure that the scene is properly captured from the final position and open the LocatorCalibration program:

Locator Calibration interface consists of three URScript functions:

• - calibration_start(scanner_id, ball_radius) - this procedure needs to be called at the beginning of the calibration program

• - calibration_add_point() -

• - calibration_finish()

4.2 Tool Calibration

The misplacement vector calculated during the robot camera calibration process determines the center of the calibration ball with respect to the Tool Frame selected during calibration. This is a convenient method for validating the calibration, but in practice the real gripping point is usually different from the center point of the calibration ball. In order to ensure successful picking, the robot tool should also be calibrated. The most commonly used method of achieving this, is to use the built-in FANUC calibration tools. The following section demonstrates tool calibration using the Three Point method.

Select Menu -> Setup -> Frames and select the tool frame you want to use within your program.

5. Runtime

5.1 Reteach Application poses

Once the Robot-Camera and Tool calibration processes have been completed, you can proceed to re-teaching the application poses. Prior to starting this process, please ensure that you have selected the correct User and Tool Frame.

Go through the LOC_SINGLE or LOC_MULTIPLE programs and reteach all J P[X] poses using the standard procedure as shown in the figure below:

5.2 Run Locator

You are now ready to run the program. Switch to T1 mode and select 10% speed; this option is recommended for safety reasons.

Ensure that you are ready to stop the motion execution immediately if something goes wrong.

Select the LOC_SINGLE/LOC_MULTIPLE program or another program which you have prepared your own.

If everything is working correctly, you should that the scan has been triggered, the result from Locator has been transmitted to the Robot Controller and the robot is approaching the object.