Have you completed our tutorial on robot drilling simulation in RoboDK? If so, you’re ready for the next step. We are about to release the next exercise, and it focuses on one of the most popular robot applications: Pick and Place. This upcoming exercise is a simple example packed with useful features and tips for using RoboDK. In today’s article, we put together a summary of key concepts introduced in the first drilling exercise and prepares you for the new features coming in the Pick and Place tutorial.

RoboDK Simulator (Virtual Robot Cell)

RoboDK allows users to create a virtual environment of their robotic cell. The software interface, its elements, and tools are designed to be intuitive. Let’s look at two important elements that are essential for any simulation.

1. The Station Tree

The Station Tree is crucial for building a robotic cell, describing the hierarchical relationship between every item: robots, tools, reference coordinate frames, objects, and more.

• Parent-Child Relationship: A Child item is dependent on a Parent item. When a Parent moves in 3D space, its Children move along with it.
• Robot Components: A Robot item typically has its Base Coordinate Frame as its Parent. A Robotic Tool (like a spindle or gripper) is a Child attached to the robot’s flange. A robot can have multiple tools, but only one can be active for a movement. (Need to calibrate your tool? Read about tool calibration.)
• Workspace Reference Frames (or World or User Frames): A Reference Frame is useful to locate a workpiece in a cell. It can be either a Child or Parent of the robot’s Base Frame, depending on your preference. Exercise 1 attached the reference frame to the robot base, while Exercise 2 does the opposite. (Learn more about reference frame calibration.)

The tree interface is easy to use. You can drag and drop items to change their dependencies and locations. You can also copy and paste items inside the tree. This is a useful feature for repetitive movements, as demonstrated in Exercise 2.

2. The Robot Panel

The Robot Panel acts as the virtual controller for your simulated robot. It can be used to move (or jog) the robot, monitor its positions and change its settings. It’s also a great tool for learning how robots move and behave, particularly if you don’t own a physical robot! The panel is divided into a few sections.

• Cartesian Jog: Move the robot’s end effector linearly or circularly along a specific direction (e.g., along the X-axis of the Cartesian space). This section displays the 3D coordinates of the robot’s active tool frame and reference frame, as well as its end effector location against the reference.
• Joint Axis Jog: View the robot’s current joint values in degrees and use the slider bars to move each joint within its limits.
• Other Configurations: For 6-axis robot arms, a single end effector location often has multiple possible joint configurations. You can select one here if needed. (Read more about robot configurations.)
• Workspace: Visualise a robot’s workspace boundaries.
• Show Frames: Show or hide specific coordinate frames of a robot.

Tools for Faster Programming

Our exercises have highlighted a few tools that speed up the programming process in RoboDK.

1. Freehand Moves: Press the Move Reference button (or if you use modern icons) on the Toolbar, or hold the Alt key to enter this mode. You can then use the mouse to hold and drag the highlighted frame , moving the robot intuitively.

2. Align Tool Orientation: This is invaluable when you need the robot tool (end effector) to be perpendicular to an object’s surface. Use this option to align the active tool with a reference frame. In Exercise 2, we show how to use the Freehand tool to get close to an object before using this feature for final alignment.

3. Simulation Speed: This determines how fast RoboDK simulates a program. With robot speed settings as demonstrated in Exercise 1, RoboDK estimates the cycle time of a simulated program and plays it according to the simulation speed setting. This is by default 5 times faster, and the Fast Simulation button lets you play the program 100 times faster than cycle time.

4. Simulation Event Instructions: These events are for simulation purposes (like making a gripper open or close). They can serve as useful place holders in a program but have no impact on the controller code generated by RoboDK. We will explore them in Exercise 2.

RoboDK Quick Tips

Here is a handy list of quick tips to make your simulation experience even smoother:

• Select an item in the Station Tree and press F2 to rename it.
• Use the + and – keys to quickly change the coordinate frame sizes.
• Hide the robot’s Flange Frame and keep only the Tool Frame (TCP) visible.
• Hide and Show items selectively in the station to keep your 3D workspace clean.

Ready for Your Next Robot Application?

We hope the takeaway notes supplement our exercises and the summary of core concepts and key features of RoboDK helps them to be memorable when you practice. RoboDK is an intuitive platform for learning and experiencing industrial robotics, whether you’re performing a drilling simulation or setting up a pick and place task. We’ve also included a little preview of Exercise 2, which demonstrates the dependency of a target and its reference, and simulation events. So stay tuned for the release of our Pick and Place example!