Organization of Robot tasks

    Hi, I am fresh out of University, fairly new to robotics and work as an automation engineer. We have a project in regards to automated welding, and i have been asked to come up with a way to organize different robot tasks and categorize them in relation to each other. For example organizing the "tool-changing"-task as the 100-series and the subtasks of that to be 101, 102, 103 and so on. it is supposed to be a way of organizing that can work across different robot manufacturers. Does anybody have any experience on how that should be done. We don't have all the specified tasks yet, so it needs to be a general way of organizing.

    Thank you in advance for any replies.

  • Nation October 31, 2023 at 10:56 AM

    Approved the thread.

    I'm not a fan of those types of organization systems. Eventually they get out of order and become more confusing that helpful. Instead, I recommend naming a "Main" program, then just name everything else words that describe what it does. For example:

    MAIN

    PICK_PART

    PLACE_PART

    TOOL_CHANGE_MAIN

    TOOL_CHANGE_PICK

    TOOL_CHANGE_PLACE

    WELD_XXX

    WELD_YYY

    Quote from eGao

    For example organizing the "tool-changing"-task as the 100-series and the subtasks of that to be 101, 102, 103 and so on. it is supposed to be a way of organizing that can work across different robot manufacturers.

    Is there a reason to use numbers instead of alpha (or alhpanumeric) names?

    "Different manufacturers" -- different robot mfgrs, or different end user mfgrs?

    What context is this being used in? Offline file organization, control system level between Robot and PLC, other?

    Your initial idea isn't bad, but it's easy to get outgrown, as HawkME has pointed out. Were I in your position, I would at minimum go with 4-digit values, and ensure each "category" is widely separated numerically to allow for maximum room to grow. If you're using these numeric codes as a program call ID between PLC and robot, I recommend allocating a 16-bit data word, which would allow for values up to 65535 (use unsigned integer).

    Keeping the numbers aligned with which programs they're linked to is also an potential issue, especially since most robot brands won't let you give a program a name that starts with a non-alphabetical character. There's also offline recordkeeping. I strongly recommend using leading zeros everywhere possible (aka, 0100 instead of 100) -- it really helps when using sorting tools.

    Hello Egao,

    The organisation of the robot's program is depending to :

    - The PLC/Robot functionalities distribution

    - The robot controller (manufacturer and type)

    - The communication (fieldbus, serial, socket...) between all component of your installation.

    - If you need external information (for example post processor to define the trajectories)

    - ...and your experience !

    Quote

    Is there a reason to use numbers instead of alpha (or alhpanumeric) names?

    +1 with SkyeFire. If you can choose name (clear and logique !) it will be better.

    In general, begin with the simpler structure, and think always that an other person need to understand your program. You can try to draw an organigram.

    Respect the recommendation of the others programmers, but, if you don't have experience, don't try to standardise.

    Have a nice day...

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