Remote Deployment and Testing

sounds like a bad plan.

Possible, but neither wise nor simple. First, you would have to have a network connection to the robot that allowed full access for WorkVisual remotely. 2nd, you would have to have someone on-site to switch the robot between Teach/Auto modes, and to allow/disallow remote access for every WorkVisual upload. The SmartPad is the Single Point Of Control (SPOC) for all these operations in order to satisfy safety requirements.

Actually starting/stopping the robot would require yet another layer of workarounds. And would be a safety nightmare.

Quote from SkyeFire

.. 2nd, you would have to have someone on-site to switch the robot between Teach/Auto modes,..

Think this is the game stopper. The other part, may be can be solved by installing VNC or something similar. There are several threads about VNC here in the forum, have tried it very long time ago on KRC2 and very early KRC4, but can't remember whether it worked on KRC4 or not, no clue about KRC5.

Bust someone could install a second small robot to turn switch key

There is an option Kuka.VirtualRemotePendant that works exactly as it sounds. Albeit you MUST have an emergency stop at hand which would be hard to implement over long distances. It has a crapload of quirks also.. buttons are toggle (which is annoying), spoc is implemented so that either a physical pendant or the remote one can be connected, if a physical pendant is connected you can only snatch the connection by having it in ext, the remote pendant window goes blank immediately when you click outside the window, and so on...

I do some stuff remotely but usually the option RemoteSupportView is good enough. You need someone on the other end to hold the deadmans switch and accept the connection. I would never dream of teaching points or movements remotely.

I use TosiBox to establish the actual network connection and it it works like a charm. Only thing is the bandwidth is limited (about 10mbit) so moving huge amounts of data kinda sucks.

one of the most annoying things i recall was need for EXT mode. once in EXT, you can change mode from the VRP itself. but... if you have no smartPAd or if it is not working this may prevent you from using VRP. and that completely ruins it...

Yes and the mode on the vrp is not the same as the mode on the smartpad. I would have liked them to be in sync. Also disconnecting may is a hassle, it must be done properly from the vrp to not stop the robot.