ABB Offers VR Integration for Robot Programming

Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty is quick­ly advanc­ing in this tech­nol­o­gy dri­ven world and is now mak­ing its way into automa­tion with ABB lead­ing the way. ABB is the first com­pa­ny to offer VR for robot pro­gram­ming through its Robot­Stu­dio. This sys­tem makes the job of a robot engi­neer much eas­i­er. It allows users to inter­act with the 3D mod­els on Robot­Stu­dio by plug­ging in to vir­tu­al real­i­ty gog­gles and view­ing the 3D mod­els from every direc­tion, much bet­ter than on a 2D com­put­er screen. 

This entire pro­gram is incred­i­bly real­is­tic thanks to the enhanced algo­rithms cre­at­ed by ABB’s spe­cial­ists. The pro­gram­mers are put in the best pos­si­ble posi­tion for over­all per­for­mance and safe­ty with Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty. They use hand­held con­trollers to inter­act with the mod­els and to vir­tu­al­ly walk around the robots, move the robot arms, cycle equip­ment, add markups, exam­ine the robots from all angles, includ­ing the bot­tom, and make adjust­ments where necessary. 

Users can then vir­tu­al­ly watch the robot ​“in per­son” as it plays back the work cycle and look for any angles that may be unsafe or phys­i­cal­ly impos­si­ble. Addi­tion­al­ly, the VR is mir­rored on a com­put­er screen, so mul­ti­ple experts can col­lab­o­rate on the best solu­tions after view­ing the robot. Long dis­tance col­lab­o­ra­tion is also pos­si­ble via a Skype con­nec­tion to tour the work­cell and exam­ine the sys­tem from afar. Also, if there are larg­er work­cell mod­els you want to exam­ine, you can sim­ply tele­port to those oth­er loca­tions. If trou­bleshoot­ing is nec­es­sary, then this also helps to get things up and run­ning faster and eas­i­er with the in-depth analy­sis provided. 

For instance, in a mate­r­i­al han­dling appli­ca­tion, if a robot drops a box, the box will drop and bounce just like in the real world. For con­vey­or belts or oth­er things where the motion of prod­ucts need to be sim­u­lat­ed, this is great as you can pre­cise­ly watch how the robot moves in coor­di­na­tion with the motion of the cables and hoses, etc. The abil­i­ty to pro­vide cable sim­u­la­tion is very help­ful to ensure that the cables do not inter­fere with the process and cre­ate unnec­es­sary haz­ards. In weld­ing or seal­ing, experts can exam­ine a work sequence up close inside the mod­el and then make adjust­ments to bet­ter the robot­’s out­put. For paint­ing appli­ca­tions, users can vir­tu­al­ly paint and cre­ate the robot­’s path from hand con­trol motion. This sim­u­la­tion and abil­i­ty to watch it all tru­ly helps to bet­ter under­stand how to improve the over­all pro­duc­tion process.

The new Robot­Stu­dio VR sys­tem goes inside the com­put­er using the HTC Vive Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty Sys­tem. This sys­tem has two ​“base sta­tion” sen­sors that cre­ate a grid to con­tain the 3D envi­ron­ment enabling the 360 degree motion track­ing. Fur­ther­more, this pro­gram has supe­ri­or sight-track­ing capa­bil­i­ties to help elim­i­nate the motion sick­ness that some peo­ple feel when using VR systems.

The ben­e­fits of vir­tu­al­ly plac­ing your­self inside the 3D mod­els is a huge time and stress saver in order to ensure, first-hand, the robots will be per­form­ing to their best abil­i­ty. As many ben­e­fits as VR brings, it also enables pro­gram­mers to actu­al­ly enjoy the time tweak­ing, mod­i­fy­ing, and adjust­ing the robots in a fun environment. 

The VR tech­nol­o­gy’s pres­ence in automa­tion has been antic­i­pat­ed for a long time, and its arrival is very excit­ing for robot engi­neers. It has already suc­cess­ful­ly increased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, safe­ty, effi­cien­cy, and great­ly improved the over­all pro­cess­ing. ABB’s Robot­Stu­dio has tru­ly cap­i­tal­ized on the ben­e­fits of VR integration…and this is just the begin­ning! The inte­gra­tion of VR into automa­tion is very excit­ing and to know that there is more to come is even bet­ter for the ease of use for own­ers, engi­neers, and pro­gram­mers. For more infor­ma­tion about ABB’s Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty using Robot­Stu­dio, con­tact Robots​.com experts online or at 877−762−6881.