Combination of cam and robot functionality

The software module offers the option of combining electronic cams and robot functionalities. Cartesian kinematic models are often used when contours should be traveled using tabular or online calculated cams. Curve profiles are determined and traveled in a synchronized manner for all axes positioned at 90° to each other.

The cam and robotics functions can be combined by entering the cam position setpoints, which are usually sent directly to the axes, into the software module as Cartesian master positions with X, Y, Z space coordinates and orientations RotZ, RotY, and RotX. As in linear or circular interpolation, the robot controller performs the inverse kinematic transformation, among other things, in order to determine the corresponding axis progressions and accordingly controls the joint axes of any kinematics. As a result, the robot's TCP travels the required contour. The cam can not only be executed in a static environment in the BASE or USER coordinate system but also in a moving USER coordinate system.

The position setpoints of the cam can, for example, originate from virtual MOVI-C^® axes with MOVIKIT^® MulitMotion Camming or from own application-specific formulas executed in the HighPriority task.

For more information on combining cam and robot functionalities, see the application example Combination of electronic cam and robot functionality.