Establishing Ethernet Communication and Ping Between PC and ROBOGUIDE Virtual Fanuc Robot

    • New

    Hello,

    I want to connect a PC to a Fanuc robot via an Ethernet port and establish communication using .NET/KAREL. For testing the program, I think the first step is to be able to ping the robot I created in ROBOGUIDE from my PC.

    I created a virtual Ethernet port on my PC and set up a random robot controller in ROBOGUIDE. I can ping my PC's virtual Ethernet port from ROBOGUIDE, but I cannot ping the robot from my PC. Has anyone tried this before? Is what I'm attempting even possible?

    Thank you in advance for the information.

    For reference, here are the details of the robot I created:
    H552 HandlingTool
    H521 English Dictionary
    R796 Ascii Program Loader
    R784 Ethernet/IP Adapter
    R785 Ethernet/IP Scanner
    R632 KAREL, R641 PC Interface
    R648 User Socket Msg
    FVRC Virtual Robot
    H782 ARC Mate 100iD

    • New

    I'm not an expert on this, but from previous experience, RoboGuide's virtual robots tend to "take over" your PC's regular NIC. The key difference is that they occupy specific ports. And if your RG sim has multiple robots, they all share the host PC's IP address, but have unique ports. This is the opposite of how real-world Fanucs work, where they all use the same ports (normally) for the same functions, but all have unique IPs (assuming they are on the same network).

    • New

    I want to ping from the PC where I run RoboGuide. There won’t be two PCs involved. Let me try to explain what I want to do, as I might not have explained it correctly in my first question.

    For example, in the past, I established communication with a Keyence camera using a program written in .NET. The Keyence camera was connected to my PC via an Ethernet cable. According to the camera's documentation, I used a non-procedural communication method to send triggers, switch run modes, and select programs using .NET code. Now, I want to achieve similar communication with a Fanuc robot. Since we don’t physically have a robot yet, I want to test the .NET program with a Controller created in RoboGuide. On the robot side, I might need to do some programming in Karel (I have no prior experience with Karel, so I’m not sure yet), but initially, I thought we at least need to be able to ping the robot to start testing the program. Maybe this thought of mine is also wrong, I’m not sure.

    I hope I’ve been able to explain what I want to do clearly. Thank you.

    • New

    Iirc you must use 127.0.0.1 (edit: or may be the op address of the pc itself) when you want to connect to Roboguide from the pc to Roboguide running on the same pc where you run the software connecting to Roboguide. The ip address config in Roboguide is used when you want to connect to Roboguide from a different pc.

    • New

    Oh, thank you very much for the quick and correct response. I set the TCP/IPv4 of the PC's virtual Ethernet port to automatic, started a new simulation, and without changing any settings, as you mentioned, I was able to ping the IP address 127.0.0.1 directly in its default state. At the same time, the robot was also able to ping the IP address 169.254.91.72, which the PC automatically obtained.

    Now, I have a question for the second step. I assume that there will be a handshaking between KAREL and .NET programs for communication from now on. Is this correct, or is there a way to establish this communication without using KAREL?

    Thank you.

    • New
    Quote from mey_88

    .. I was able to ping the IP address 127.0.0.1 directly in its default state ..

    This is normal, and happens on every PC, even when you don't have roboguide running. It is the localhost, the PC itself. But this doesn't say anything about wether the connection to roboguide will be possible or not. You must try the connection.

    Quote from mey_88

    Now, I have a question for the second step. I assume that there will be a handshaking between KAREL and .NET programs for communication from now on. Is this correct, or is there a way to establish this communication without using KAREL?

    Don't know a different possibility to connect to a .NET application.

    • New
    Quote from hermann

    Iirc you must use 127.0.0.1 (edit: or may be the op address of the pc itself)

    That's what I experienced. Opening a web browser to 127.0.0.1 should open the virtual robot's web page, assuming there's only one virtual robot in the active RoboGuide layout. A program running on the same PC that is running RG should be able to access the robot via LocalHost, but will need to use the specific ports in the SERVICES.TXT file of the virtual robot. It should look something like this:

    • New

    The information you sent was very helpful, thank you! Below, I’ve copied the connection and data sending parts of the .NET program. This program connects via IP: 127.0.0.1 and Port: 80, but I think I couldn’t properly set up the TCP_SERVER listening process in KAREL. Because the .NET program gets stuck at the line "Dim bytesRead As Integer = stream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)".

    In this case, it seems like the .NET program isn’t receiving any data from the robot.

    I’m not sure if this is due to the lack of a physical connection or if there’s an error in the KAREL code.


    Private Sub ConnectToRobot()
    robotIP = IP_txt.Text
    port = Port_txt.Text
    Try
    client = New TcpClient(robotIP, port)
    stream = client.GetStream()
    connected = True
    MessageBox.Show("Connection Established!", "Info", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Information)
    Catch ex As Exception
    MessageBox.Show("Connection Error: " & ex.Message, "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error)
    End Try
    End Sub

    Private Sub SendDataToRobot()
    If Not connected Then
    MessageBox.Show("Initialise the connection first!", "Warning", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Warning)
    Return
    End If

    Try
    Dim r3 As String = r3_txt.Text.PadLeft(4, "0"c)
    Dim r4 As String = r4_txt.Text.PadLeft(4, "0"c)

    Dim message As String = r3 & r4
    Dim data As Byte() = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(message)
    stream.Write(data, 0, data.Length)

    Dim buffer(3) As Byte
    Dim bytesRead As Integer = stream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)
    Dim response As String = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buffer, 0, bytesRead)

    r5_txt.Text = response
    Catch ex As Exception
    MessageBox.Show("Data send/receive error: " & ex.Message, "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error)
    End Try
    End Sub

    • New

    But in general PORT 80 is the robots web server port... -> I didn’t know this information, thank you very much. You are also absolutely right in your last comment. I will try to write a program in KAREL using SM commands.

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