Software Request to KUKA - the robot forum bugs and wish list

so i can continue with not practicing or improving my German

Editing ConfigMon.ini on HMI is slow and difficult but sometimes still the quickest way to get something displayed.

This can be much quicker if:

1. When saving edited VARIABLE field should check if "Name" field is still empty, simply copy variable name there. but only if field is still empty. This way one only need to type it once....

2. Set refresh as default. One only goes through trouble of typing some entry to see the value. It makes no sense to manually add refresh each and every time.

3. Try to reuse height of already entered entry as default. Nobody want to waste time formatting each and every new entry from ground up.

4. One day it would be nice to see intelisense offer suggestions as one is typing (why not popup a window and let user pick variable from list of declared variables).

5. Dialog messages that accept keyboard input, like ABB RAPID already accepts (without having to buy the OrangeApps add-on).

6. A more standardized user interface across all the different windows and workspaces of WorkVisual. Right now, some things you access via double-clicking in one menu have to be accessed via right-click in another. And trying to manually select a directory forces you to click-click-click your way through entire directory trees, rather than typing or pasting a long path.

7. Memory. Being limited to less than 10MB of programs on a modern controller is ridiculous.

8. Something similar to Fanuc's PCDK

9. An option to make Archives (locally or via WV) with date&time stamps as part of the file name, so as to enable "rolling" backups, and

10. An option, when Restoring, to select an Archive to restore

11. Better Space Visualization for SafeOp (that "ROBOT CAN MOVE!" floating tag gets completely in the way of what I need to see).

12. SafeOp visualization in WorkVisual, before deploying a project, to save time on the testing cycle for Safety WorkSpaces

13. Some kind of tool for SafeOp to make it easier to predict where the robot will encounter Velocity Reduction near the edges of Safety WorkSpace boundaries -- as it stands, the only way is to try moving the boundary, reboot, and test in automatic or T2 -- there's no way to see it happen in T1.

14. A way to make changes to SafeOp settings without requiring a 5-minute reboot cycle (or two of them!).

15. WoV tends to crash a lot and when least expected. Therefore WoV need auto-save option so one can focus on work rather than time tracking and clicking Ctrl+S.

16. When program has fault, Teach pendant should open fold(s) and display line with error directly. Manually opening closing folds and scrolling up and down just to resolve some bugs is very inefficient. More over, in KSS8.5 does not even bring faulty line into view. It is always one or two line below displayed code. One does not even see the cursor and good luck finding it by scrolling

17. Use different color for comments. Inside FOLD, every line of code is green, outside fold, every line of code is black - regardless if commented out or not. One simply cannot easily tell comment lines and code lines apart. Also color difference for open and close fold color is too similar, specially red (top fold). Makes it next to impossible to see if sharing something on most projectors (training session or project discussion for example). Maybe don't (over)use color, there are other options one can turn on/off like Italics and Bold

18. a way to configure a smartHmi button also in relase 8.3 [in the 8.5 has already been implemented]

19. a way to use the debug mode in WoV also in automatic mode [now is possible only in T1/2] [in my opinion the ABB RobotStudio is the overall complete Robot suite]

20. A way to dynamically create spline blocks without using DirLoader.

21. In Actual position window, either additionally display Status and Turn in decimal or only in decimal. I can think of uses that need binary, but those are rare (at least for me). Could also show current tool and base.

22. Option turn off space mouse indefinitely without having to edit text files tucked away in the controller.

23. A bit of a pie in the sky, but how about object oriented programing?

24. Position of not only flange and TCP, but all the other joints too. Something we can do ourselves, but nice if it were included.

25. Interrupts returning variables without needing those variables to be global.

26. Structures that can have arrays in them of not just char type.

27. Native linux version of Workvisual?

28. WoV KRL editor correct folding of comments inserted through inline forms.

29. Capability to use constants in array declarations, e.g.

decl const int cint_ComNameLen = 60

Decl char ComName[cint_ComNameLen]

30. Forward() and Inverse() could take Tool and Base as parameters instead of using active ones.

31. allow folding of long lines. most languages use underscore as continuation character. simply wrapping long lines creates a lot of mess that is next to unreadable. i would prefer to have control over how things are presented on HMI

32. allow ILFs to access ANY valid position declaration. Even if it is an array element for example.... or part of structure.

33. allow choosing default data type for ILF motions. why it has to be E6POS and not AXIS or E3AXIS or E3POS or whatever...? of course one can manually declare them in DAT file and then call them up in ILF but that defeats points to use ILFs. I run into this with client using bunch of 5axis robots (agilus and Quantecs that are not operated in PAL mode), and they found this very challenging. Part of the problem is that with PAL mode off, robot will move unpredictably and it will collide with surroundings when data points are declared as Cartesian, even if tool and base are correct and point is taught correctly. Yet KSS will happily offer Cartesian data types for any new ILF point, no matter what. don't shoot the messenger, I did not choose or recommend those systems, just had to deal with them and reporting the issue.

34. Please change defaults in MsgLib so any message is always logged to database. by default Why the default setting is to NOT log messages? This is kinda important.

35. allow monitoring of any task any time. switching interpreter and having to select robot program just to see what submit is doing is ridiculous and way too cumbersome. Should simply pick task and see what it does. right away... and have option to single step.

36. HALT command should be available as ILF. I always add it on systems with UserTech and it is a life saver.

37. Need debug option to step-over for subs and functions or better yet - "run to cursor". It is just not practical to single step though long loops just to get to some point line or two lower. Or have to abort debugging session, close program, mark some files as not visible, select program and again run to program just to get back to where one already was.

38. Both WoV and KSS have hard time identifying mismatched quotation marks. Both generate tons of unrelated messages and none of them point at the bad program line that is the root problem.

39. WoV Search Results window is not good. It is very difficult to resize and move around at least in Win10. The grabbing edges are some 20 pixels outside the window which is quite awkward. Also tab names of every search should only show search term. Extra wording such as "Search results" only limits what can be displayed. When several searches are done, one cannot even see search strings, only the prefix "Search results".. Search string is reduced to dots. Yes I am aware of the button on far right that can display the same as a list.

40. The ability to call subroutines/functions, or access variables, using strings, would be very handy sometimes. ABB RAPID allows this. Right now, if I had a hundred subroutines called "MOVE_STATIONx_TO_STATIONy" (where x and y are integers representing station numbers, let's say 10 stations total), handling the various subroutine calls for all the possible combinations of x and y would require an enormous set of nested SWITCH or IF statements. But if I could call subroutines by a string representing their name, I could use two lines of code: an SWRITE to build the string, then a call using the string.

I don't think this is really possible without completely changing how KSS handles compile-time linking, though, so I doubt it'll ever happen in KRL. Although it does appear to be possible in Java, so the iiWA can probably do it. And if Sunrise ever supplants KSS in the "main" robot product line....

A one line function like Moveoffs in ABB 👍

Quote from the leg

A one line function like Moveoffs in ABB 👍

Sorry if I am just ignorant (don't have experience with ABB except for some light reading of the manual), but aren't "lin_rel {x 100, y 100}" or something like "lin tg1:{x 100, y 100}" equivalents to that?

41. Editing ConfigMoni thrue TeachPendant is sometimes painful if you have alot of Variable/Signals you want to monitor during the test period. Being able to edit thrue WoV instead would make this alot easier to edit and insert variable's..

42. In the ConfigMoni you can only have maximum of 12 Item/Variable's on each folder/window you could monitor constantly. Increasing the number of that would be great.

about point 41.... you can edit it in WoV.

in fact WoV lets you can generate entire pages of ConfigMon.ini simply by picking variables in WoV. Check WoV video instructions.

If the goal is to just backup and edit ConfigMon like a text file, there are several options and yes, this can be done with WoV too but this is not ready out of box. It requires a bit of setup in the WoV project:

to add ConfigMon to WoV project, navigate to files tab, and under controller add new folder called C. inside that folder create further folders KRC and USER. under USER folder place your copy of ConfigMon (C/KRC/User/Configmon.ini).

this will allow you to manipulate this file offline and deploy it. but - this is a one way street. any time you make change to ConfigMon on the smartPad, and then do transfer of WoV project from KRC to WoV, you will get back the file that was deployed, not the just edited ConfigMon file.

To solve that, you need to add entry on the robot side in file:

C:\KRC\User\ProjectExternalFileList.xml

43. UNDO type of key for touch up would be great!

44 multisubmit in 8.5 is improved so one does not have to stop all submits to edit some file such as $CONFIG.DAT or own global DAT file. but monitoring of running submits is still just as clunky as before. i would really like to see some improvements here. why not effortlessly switch view from one interpreter to another with one click... something like tabs maybe. and when Expert, I want access to all debugging options like stop, reset, deselect, block select, line edit, switch to single step mode etc - regardless which interpreter is currently displayed. and why the heck one need to select ROBOT program if intent is to just monitor and test some code in already running SUBMIT program?

45. i really want breakpoints - real ones. i tried various workarounds and with some proper program structure one can get interesting results but this only makes sense if program is designed from ground up to allow this. even HALT command cannot be inserted while program is selected. on systems with UserTech i always make my own ILF just for this. it is not perfect solution but it is a quite useful and time saving. it beats having to deselect programs, find same place again, make change, save, return robot to safe start point, run program through bunch of steps and sequences just to get back where one already was 15min ago. HALT as inline form instruction should be available out of box on every system. and still does not replace breakpoints because inserting/removing HALT or similar from program means that programs still must be stopped manually before it hits some code. this is why real breakpoints are still needed.

46. need numeric input box. dialog is limited to just 7 keys which is very limiting.

47. OfficeLite or OPS do not have real hardware smartPad and therefore cannot break out endless loop displaying dialog for example. The only workaround is to reboot, but there should be nicer and faster option.

48. WoV needs hotkeys for things like open/close folds, preferably multiple levels, not just open all / close all. but please - no more 3 or more keys.

49. WoV need feature to wrap long text lines. for example spline ILFs and declarations are monsters