The New KUKA KR C4 Robot Controller

KUKA brings a rev­o­lu­tion­ary con­troller to the automa­tion game with the con­trol sys­tem of the future, the KR C4. The KR C4 is a pow­er­ful, intel­li­gent, safe, and more flex­i­ble con­troller that can bring a scal­able appli­ca­tion poten­tial and more to your pro­duc­tion line. It is tru­ly a pio­neer for the automa­tion indus­try as it has seam­less­ly inte­grat­ed Robot and Motion Con­trol with con­trol process­es for PLC, CNC, and Safety. 

The KUKA KR C4 also brings cost reduc­tions in inte­gra­tion, main­te­nance and ser­vic­ing, while also increas­ing long-term effi­cien­cy and flex­i­bil­i­ty of the sys­tems through all of the fol­low­ing advantages. 

Flex­i­ble Control: 

The KUKA KR C4 is the uni­form con­troller for all KUKA robots rang­ing from the low to high pay­load cat­e­go­ry. It’s open archi­tec­ture enables it to con­trol KUKA robots and exter­nal axes. By tak­ing advan­tage of cur­rent, open tech­nolo­gies such as Giga­bit Eth­er­net and mul­ti-core archi­tec­ture, KUKA Robot­ics has cre­at­ed a robot con­troller that is com­pact, afford­able, and durable. Even the soft­ware is struc­tured dif­fer­ent­ly — with all the com­po­nents shar­ing a data­base and infra­struc­ture. KUKA brings to the table its new­ly devel­oped, ground-break­ing, clear­ly-struc­tured sys­tem archi­tec­ture that cre­ates open and pow­er­ful data stan­dards. This allows all inte­grat­ed con­trollers – from Safe­ty­Con­trol, Robot­Con­trol, and Motion­Con­trol to Log­ic­Con­trol – to have a joint data­base and infra­struc­ture to use and share intelligently. 

Ener­gy Savings: 

The new ener­gy man­age­ment sys­tem reduces ener­gy con­sump­tion of the con­troller to be reduced up to 95% in stand­by mode.

Pow­er­ful Design: 

KUKA chose durable com­po­nents and a well-designed cab­i­net to help guar­an­tee a reli­able oper­a­tion even under extreme con­di­tions. Safe­ty, robot, log­ic, and motion con­trol are all com­bined in a sin­gle con­troller. Secure data exchange mea­sured in mil­lisec­onds forms the basis for new safe­ty con­cepts in human machine coop­er­a­tion. It under­stands its own robot lan­guage KRL and also CNC and PLCs, enabling it to com­mu­ni­cate direct­ly to your Siemens or Rock­well con­troller. Addi­tion­al­ly, the data­base and infra­struc­ture are shared, enabling a sim­pler and more pow­er­ful automa­tion prod­uct. KUKA has done a phe­nom­e­nal job with cre­at­ing a supe­ri­or prod­uct with the KR C4-based automa­tion solu­tions, pro­vid­ing sim­ple and flex­i­ble robot pro­gram­ming via inline forms and new Spline motion programming.

Bet­ter Performance: 

The KR C4 has a high run-time per­for­mance and a high-end Soft PLC option that allows full access to the entire con­troller I/O sys­tem. This enables the I/O han­dling of the robot, a com­plete robot cell, or even a line of mul­ti­ple robots. Fur­ther­more, vari­ables such as axis posi­tions and/​or veloc­i­ties can be read and processed via func­tion blocks. The per­for­mance ben­e­fits don’t stop there. The KUKA CNC con­trol option pro­vides for the abil­i­ty of direct pro­gram­ming and oper­a­tion of KUKA robots via G‑code. This helps process com­plex pro­grams from CAD/CAM sys­tems while pro­vid­ing a high degree of accu­ra­cy. All of this tech­nol­o­gy coor­di­na­tion helps to sim­pli­fy the inte­gra­tion of robots into an exist­ing CNC environment. 

Increased Safe­ty:

The safe­ty con­troller is inte­grat­ed into the con­trol sys­tem with­out any pro­pri­etary hard­ware. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion of the safe­ty func­tions are imple­ment­ed via Eth­er­net-based pro­to­cols while also enabling the dual-chan­nel oper­a­tion required for safe­ty appli­ca­tions, all using mul­ti-core technology. 

Ver­sa­tile and Reliable: 

The KUKA KR C4 con­troller can work with dif­fer­ent mains volt­ages and types, and in extreme envi­ron­ments such as cold, heat, or humid­i­ty. It also speaks 25 lan­guages and meets all glob­al­ly rel­e­vant ISO and US standards.

KR C4 Variants: 

All five vari­ants of the KR C4 are supe­ri­or in every form. They pro­vide the cus­tomer with dif­fer­ent options for opti­mal inte­gra­tion into a spe­cif­ic automa­tion envi­ron­ment. All of the dif­fer­ent types of the KR C4 con­troller enable all require­ments, such as stack­a­bil­i­ty, pro­tec­tion against dust, humid­i­ty and oth­er influ­ences, to be tak­en into account. The four oth­er vari­ants are list­ed below: 

KUKA KR C4 Compact: 

|Size: 271 x 483 x 460 mm|

|Pro­tec­tion Rat­ing: IP 20|

|Weight: 33 kg |

|Axes: 6+2|

KUKA KR C4 Smallsize‑2:

|Size: 615 x 580 x 540 mm| 

|Pro­tec­tion Rat­ing: IP 54|

|Weight: 60 kg |

|Axes: 6+6|

KUKA KR C4 Midsize: 

|Size: 1160 x 792 x 558 mm| 

|Pro­tec­tion Rat­ing: IP 54|

|Weight: 160 kg |

|Axes: 6+2|

KUKA KR C4 Extended: 

|Size: 1600 x 842 x 562 mm| 

|Pro­tec­tion Rat­ing: IP 54|

|Weight: 240 kg |

|Axes: 6+2|

KUKA Smart Pad Teach Pendant

The KUKA Smart Pad Teach Pen­dant can oper­ate all KUKA robots and KR C4 con­trollers. It makes oper­at­ing robots sim­ple as it has sim­ple oper­atur con­trollers with jog keys and 6‑D mouse. It fea­tures well ‑lit 8.4 screen with an intu­itive user inter­face and user friend­ly design. It has a low weight for extra com­fort and enables direct sav­ing and load­ing con­fig­u­ra­tions via the USB port. A 6D mouse and on board USB port pro­vide new ways to inter­act with a teach pen­dant. The smart­PAD also includes keys and a large touch screen display.

It if the teach pen­dant isn’t being used, it can sim­ply be unplugged dur­ing on going oper­a­tion. The port­fo­lio of KUKA soft­ware solu­tions cov­ers near­ly all appli­ca­tion to help meet near­ly every cus­tomer requirement. 

Con­tact Robots​.com

The KUKA KR C4 is the per­fect solu­tion for any­where on the globe where high-per­for­mance con­trol sys­tems are required. If you are inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about robot­ic con­trollers and the KUKA KR C4, con­tact Robots​.com rep­re­sen­ta­tives online or reach them at 877−762−6881.