Sending sensor data across FRI

    Hello all,

    I have a KUKA LBR iiwa 14 R820 robot with a 6-axis ATI force/torque transducer attached to the end-effector. I am running the system in FRI mode and am trying to send via etherCAT the Force/Torque data to the FRI computer like so:

    sensor->robot arm ->sunrise cabinet ->FRI linux PC

    I uploaded the sensor data sheet given to me by ATI to the Sunrise Workbench Workvisual add-on (see Capture1.PNG attached). So it appears that each I/O has a unique address now. I'm not sure how (or even if it is possible) to access these I/O from the FRI PC. I'd really appreciate any advice you may have regarding this.

    Thanks,
    Justin

    Hi Justin,

    In order to configure the I/Os in Sunrise.Workbench you need WorkVisual. That being said, I tried it myself to configure the I/Os on WorkVisual and got stuck maybe you have some more luck and can help me :smiling_face:

    Good Luck!

    The torque sensors are at each axis, so any TCP force/torque measures are internally generated in the controller through a forward transform using the nominal robot model.

    Using an external force/torque sensor at the flange gives a more accurate reading and allows for validation of the robot model.

    I don't have an iiwa, so I don't know if the FRI lets you do something special. On KRC4, I would then map those to the robot outputs(by grouping the bits to match the 32 bit int), and then map these to an ethercat bridge (hardware device installed on the X44 bus) to a PLC. The PLC would then have an API you can access via the PC. Given you are on sunrise, probably there is a more direct way to access the robot outputs, via some other communication?

    Obviously, this is a lot of components you may not have yet. If you had a PLC with ethercat, you could also just connect the ATI directly to it(thats what I do with my KRC4). In that config, I simply pass the robot position via the bridge, and assemble the data on the PLC end. You may get better sync doing it on the sunrise end though, as with my method the ATI data is 4 ms "fresher" than the position data. What protocol does FRI use? TCP/IP I assume?

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