WIRELESS TEACH PENDANTS who is going to release and when

    I heard that this fall there will be some changes to a euro standard for safety and some companies are exploring wireless technology for teach pendants......
    Any one have any info on wireless teach pendants......
    basically who, how, when????

    Oh, well

    I know comau has a wireless teach pendant for a while now. Don't know about you guys but i am always loosing the remote control of the tv, how do you explain your customer that you don't know where you left the teach pendant. :uglyhammer2:


    But the advantage is you will not be limited to the wire anymore. So it does have a few positive and negative side of it.


    Here is a link
    http://www.comau.com/index.jsp?ixPageId=268&ixMenuId=207


    And tech specs
    http://www.comau.com/downloadD…entId=689&ixDownload=true

    Saw one back in 06. Motoman NX controller with a HP-3 arm. Was not made directly by Motoman, an engineer at Honda Canada did it as a project. Had a box to carry around and could not control more than one arm or external axis.


    I'm waiting for ISO 10.218 for the controller to be released, may allow for a wireless pendant. That would be sweet.

    I know a thing or two, because I’ve seen a thing or two. Don't even ask about a third thing. I won't know it.

    I thought that as a safety requirement it was important to have a EMG on the TP.
    and the EMG is usually hardwired.


    How would they ever have a EMG signal in the remote mode? ???


    do they have EMG for the satellites from the earth? a similar technology may be applicable?

    I heard a technical presentation recently that included news on wireless pendants. In summary from what I remember being said:


    1. Technical committees recognize the need and are trying to figure out methods & technology specs in order to give engineers a method of designing the equipment to meet the safety requirements.
    2. Working through operational issues & requirements such as
    (a) one pendant being able to control multiple robots...pendant is required to "login" to a selected robot and only control that robot while selected
    (b) pendant must be "docked" when not in use
    (c) if a pendant is used in a multi-robot environment but only "logged-in" to one robot at a time, then how does the ESTOP work to maintain safety?


    ...and so on. Many issues to be resolved, and the wheels of the ANSI + ISO technical committees grind away slowly at it.

    I always thought it would be a cool gadget....additionally the ability to convert existing pendants into wireless with a battery pack and wireless tx/rx box...


    Negatives - weight, battery life, dead batteries, charging jacks, misplaced pendants
    Might have to use a neck strap much like used w/ RC airplanes....I think a battery pack will add a lot of weight to hold for long periods of time...


    Positives - obvious


    I hope the new safety regulations allow for a wireless setup...pendant cables suck...

    Seems like no one replied for a long time so maybe something has changed since.
    Has anyone heard about wireless pendants? Mine drives me crazy. I keep stepping on the wire and it's so annoying especially while programming :mad:

    The KUKA KRC4 teach pendant runs completely off of a network connection, including the E-stop, so at least in theory there's probably nothing stopping it from running on a wireless network connection, as long as that network is reliable enough that the safety packets don't experience any delay or losses -- safety-qualified networks are hyper-sensitive, for obvious reasons.

    as SkyeFire already stated, connection to SmartPad is ethernet. the actual media (copper, fibre, wifi) is not important. i think Siemens has wireless multi panel for a while, then there are italians with slick compact pendant etc:
    http://www.automation.siemens.…en/brochure_panels_en.pdf
    http://www.metalformingmagazin…zine/article.asp?aid=6300

    1) read pinned topic: READ FIRST...

    2) if you have an issue with robot, post question in the correct forum section... do NOT contact me directly

    3) read 1 and 2

    ABB recently ran a demo of a windows tablet running a teach pendant interface wirelessly. Didn't see it myself, so I'm not sure if it was full-featured or a limited function.


    I know the limiting factor at the moment is that safety regulations require a direct hardline for the E-stop, in case of emergency. Until a reliable wireless e-stop is developed and approved by safety regulators, this idea won't get very far.

    Actually, unless I recall incorrectly, the RIA standard for wireless safety-rated devices (like E-Stops) have already been set. And since safety-rated devices can be connected via TCP/IP networks, now, the network media (wired or wireless) are essentially irrelevant. If a network connection is lost, or suffers too many packet delays, the system fails safe. A sufficiently robust and high-speed WiFi network could probably become part of a safety-rated network without the safety devices even noticing that they weren't connected via Ethernet "hard lines" anymore.
    On the other side of the coin, a lot of end users probably don't have any wireless systems in their approved safety device catalogs, simply b/c such things haven't really existed until recently.

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