RoboLogix is a

robotics simulator A robotics simulator is a simulator used to create an application for a physical robot without depending on the physical machine, thus saving cost and time. In some case, such applications can be transferred onto a physical robot (or rebuilt) with ...

which uses a

physics engine A physics engine is computer software that provides an approximate simulation of certain physical systems, such as rigid body dynamics (including collision detection), soft body dynamics, and fluid dynamics, of use in the domains of computer gr ...

emulate Emulate, Inc. (Emulate) is a biotechnology company that commercialized Organs-on-Chips technology—a human cell-based technology that recreates organ-level function to model organs in healthy and diseased states. The technology has applications ...

robotics applications. The advantages of using robotics simulation tools such as RoboLogix are that they save time in the design of robotics applications and they can also increase the level of safety associated with robotic equipment since various "what if" scenarios can be tried and tested before the system is activated. RoboLogix provides a platform to teach, test, run, and

debug In computer programming and software development, debugging is the process of finding and resolving '' bugs'' (defects or problems that prevent correct operation) within computer programs, software, or systems. Debugging tactics can involve int ...

programs that have been written using a five-axis

industrial robot An industrial robot is a robot system used for manufacturing. Industrial robots are automated, programmable and capable of movement on three or more axes. Typical applications of robots include welding, painting, assembly, disassembly, pick a ...

in a range of applications and functions. These applications include pick-and-place,

palletizing A pallet (also called a skid) is a flat transport structure, which supports goods in a stable fashion while being lifted by a forklift, a pallet jack, a front loader, a jacking device, or an erect crane. A pallet is the structural foundat ...

welding Welding is a fabrication (metal), fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by using high heat to melt the parts together and allowing them to cool, causing Fusion welding, fusion. Welding is distinct from lower ...

, and painting. RoboLogix was developed by Colin Simpson and John (Bud) Skinner. It is primarily intended as an educational resource, and is used by high schools,

colleges A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...

, and universities to provide laboratory simulation of industrial robots. Some institutions, such as

George Brown College George Brown College is a public, fully accredited college of applied arts and technology with three campuses in downtown Toronto (Ontario, Canada). Like many other colleges in Ontario, GBC was chartered in 1966 by the government of Ontario and ...

use RoboLogix as part of an online robotics distance education program. The

simulation software Simulation software is based on the process of modeling a real phenomenon with a set of mathematical formulas. It is, essentially, a program that allows the user to observe an operation through simulation without actually performing that operation. ...

allows for verification of the robot's reaching ability, travel ranges and collisions. This type of simulation software provides an increased level of reliability in the planning process and program development as well as reducing the overall completion/commissioning time. The ability to preview the behavior of a robotic system in a

virtual world A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...

allows for a variety of mechanisms, devices, configurations and controllers to be tried and tested before being applied to a "real world" system. RoboLogix has the capacity of real-time simulation of the motion of an industrial robot using both

geometric modeling __NOTOC__ Geometric modeling is a branch of applied mathematics and computational geometry that studies methods and algorithms for the mathematical description of shapes. The shapes studied in geometric modeling are mostly two- or three-dimensi ...

and

kinematics Kinematics is a subfield of physics, developed in classical mechanics, that describes the Motion (physics), motion of points, Physical object, bodies (objects), and systems of bodies (groups of objects) without considering the forces that cause ...

modeling. RoboLogix enables

programmers A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

to write their own robot programs and use

sensors A sensor is a device that produces an output signal for the purpose of sensing a physical phenomenon. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or subsystem that detects events or changes in its environment and sends ...

such as

video cameras A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos (as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film). Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of other ...

, which are used for obtaining the desired position of the robot end effector. In addition, a

teach pendant An industrial robot is a robot system used for manufacturing. Industrial robots are automated, programmable and capable of movement on three or more axes. Typical applications of robots include welding, painting, assembly, disassembly, pick a ...

control panel is included with the simulator that allows the user to command the robot to pick up a tracked object and return it to a home location through jogged commands or pre-programmed positions.

Control panel

The RoboLogix control panel consists of both robot control functions as well as environment control functions such as

conveyor system A conveyor system is a common piece of mechanical handling equipment that moves materials from one location to another. Conveyors are especially useful in applications involving the transport of heavy or bulky materials. Conveyor systems allow ...

controls, on-off hard-wired control, etc. The control panel allows the user to command the robot to pick up a tracked object and return it to a home location through jogged commands or pre-programmed positions. With robotic systems in general, angular position movements are commonly used for large (course) motion and linear position movements are often used for smaller (fine) increments. There are several command instructions on the control panel such as Reset, Home, Setup and Zero which are used to automatically set the robot to a specific position for

calibration In measurement technology and metrology, calibration is the comparison of measurement values delivered by a device under test with those of a calibration standard of known accuracy. Such a standard could be another measurement device of know ...

or realignment.

Vision system

RoboLogix provides 12

viewpoints Viewpoints is a technique of dance composition that acts as a medium for thinking about and acting upon movement, gesture and creative space. Originally developed in the 1970s by master theater artist and educator Mary Overlie, the Six Viewpoints ...

, or

camera angles The camera angle marks the specific location at which the movie camera or video camera is placed to take a shot. A scene may be shot from several camera angles simultaneously. This will give a different experience and sometimes emotion. The diff ...

for a given robot work envelope. These viewpoints are accessed by the twelve CAM keys and allow for the viewing from a variety of angles and perspectives. By using these camera viewpoints, the user can move around in a 3D animated environment in much the same way they would in the real-world. One of the camera views is from the robot's end effector, which allows for the real-time visualization and positioning of the

end effector In robotics, an end effector is the device at the end of a robotic arm, designed to interact with the environment. The exact nature of this device depends on the application of the robot. In the strict definition, which originates from serial ro ...

(gripper) as it approaches the workpiece.

Programming language

Like most robot programming languages, RoboLogix programs consist of

data object In computer science, an object can be a variable, a data structure, a function, or a method. As regions of memory, they contain value and are referenced by identifiers. In the object-oriented programming paradigm, ''object'' can be a combinatio ...

s and

program flow In computer science, control flow (or flow of control) is the order in which individual statements, instructions or function calls of an imperative program are executed or evaluated. The emphasis on explicit control flow distinguishes an ''imper ...

. The data objects reside in registers and the program flow represents the list of instructions, or

instruction set In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ' ...

, that is used to program the robot. RoboLogix program language is a type of

scripting language A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled. A scripting ...

that is used to control the

software application Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

. Programming languages are generally designed for building

data structures In computer science, a data structure is a data organization, management, and storage format that is usually chosen for efficient access to data. More precisely, a data structure is a collection of data values, the relationships among them, a ...

and

algorithms In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing c ...

from scratch, while scripting languages are intended more for connecting, or gluing, components and instructions together.Programming language reference
/ref> Consequently, the RoboLogix instruction set is a streamlined list of program commands that are used to simplify the programming process and provide rapid application development.

Instruction set

The RoboLogix instruction set contains 16 commands, which are usually written as a program on a line-by-line basis. These commands are used to instruct the robot to perform tasks such as moving to a specific location, picking up an object, executing a

subroutine In computer programming, a function or subroutine is a sequence of program instructions that performs a specific task, packaged as a unit. This unit can then be used in programs wherever that particular task should be performed. Functions may ...

, waiting, etc. One of the more popular commands in the instruction set is the IF instruction, which compares numerical values located in two registers. If a register has a value that is greater than (>), less than (<), greater than/equal to (>=), less than/equal to (<=), equal to (=), or not equal to (<>) another register, it will execute the next line in the program if the condition is true. The IF command is often used with the JMP LBL instruction to control program execution. All instruction set information is stored in registers, which are data locations capable of holding variable numeric values. There are two main types of registers used by RoboLogix: position registers and variable registers. Position registers contain both the linear and angular

data point In statistics, a unit of observation is the unit described by the data that one analyzes. A study may treat groups as a unit of observation with a country as the unit of analysis, drawing conclusions on group characteristics from data collected at ...

coordinates and include axis (joint) information for A1, A2, A3, etc. and for X, Y, Z linear, or

Cartesian coordinates A Cartesian coordinate system (, ) in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular oriented lines, measured in t ...

. There are also 32 variable registers which can be used for holding instruction set data such as position comparisons and time-delay information. In addition to position registers and variable registers, some robot software programs also have palletizing registers, which are used to manage the position of the stack point in palletizing applications.

Palletizing

Palletizing is one of the more popular applications for robots, and is accomplished by combining a series of commands into a palletizing routine. A RoboLogix palletizing routine consists of five program instructions, or lines. The first instruction is the Palletize instruction, which is followed by a

linear motion Linear motion, also called rectilinear motion, is one-dimensional motion along a straight line, and can therefore be described mathematically using only one spatial dimension. The linear motion can be of two types: uniform linear motion, with co ...

instruction to move to the stack point. The stack point is the top-center of the workpiece, and a group of stack points forms a stacking pattern, as shown in the adjacent image. The first stack point in a stacking pattern is located at (1,1,1) (row, column, layer) and is incremented each time the palletizing routine is executed.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.RoboLogix.com Robotics simulation software Simulation programming languages Industrial robotics