Welcome to Robox documentation!

Robox S.p.A.

Robox a company started in 1975, designs and manufatures electronic controllers, programming languages, development environments for robotics and motion control systems.

Its broad range of products permit to deal with any applications, from the simplest ones (one or two controlled axes), to the most sophisticated ones (dozens of controlled axes) thanks to the availability of architectures which can be “modular”, “compact” or even integrated in brushless drives. Innovation and quality have been Robox’s main goals since the very beginning.

Innovation has always been pursued keeping in mind the global reliability (present and future) of the product.

Quality has always been ensured by appropriate design choices and an accurate selection of materials. The respect for cogency and the continous improvement of the Quality Management System ensure the achievement of the mentioned objectives

Robox product catalog contain complete informations about Robox controllers, drives, HMI, softwares and packages and libaries (G-code, Robot kinematics, PLCopen, etc.). Download and check the catalog before going on with this documentation.

Note

The purpose of this document is to show the use of ROBOX products. It is a kind of tutorial. Even if a lot of examples deal with the basics, the purpose of this tutorial is not to teach how to use Microsoft windows neither how to learn to program from the begining. Previous knowlodge of the basics of any programming language (know how to write a simple program, e.g. 10 lines of instructions) and the use of Linux or Windows operating systems (changing ip address) is assumed.

Note

The appendix Fundamental of automation cover the basics and principles of industrial controllers (PLC), sensors and actuators.

Note

Obvious steps are not listed in the tutorial. e.g. when we say connect the controller to the computer it si obvious that you have to power it on, plug the ethernet cable I don’t know where, etc. Otherwise I encourge you to watch The Lego Movie

Documentation

This documentation will show the use of Robox follwing products:

• RP1, RP2 : Robox compact controllers
• RDE : Robox Development Environment
• RDT : Robox Display tools (HMI)
• IMD : Robox Integrated Drive

RDE

• 1. Overview
  • 1.1. Overview
  • 1.2. Safety
• 2. RDE - Robox Development Environment
  • 2.1. First step
  • 2.2. New RTE project
  • 2.3. RDE basics
  • 2.4. Important folders and files
  • 2.5. Tools
  • 2.6. Bus configuration
• 3. R3
  • 3.1. Overview
  • 3.2. Program structure
  • 3.3. Basic syntax
  • 3.4. Predefined variables
• 4. R3 demos
  • 4.1. Demo 1: Analog input
  • 4.2. Demo 2 : Using functions
  • 4.3. Demo 3 : Cylinder
  • 4.4. Demo 4: State machine
• 5. Object block
  • 5.1. OB
  • 5.2. OB Predefined example
• 6. OB demo
  • 6.1. Cylinder
• 7. X-script
  • 7.1. Basic syntax
  • 7.2. Functions
  • 7.3. Objects
  • 7.4. 3D graphic panel
  • 7.5. Shell commands file
  • 7.6. AGV
• 8. X-script 3D Graphic panel
  • 8.1. VMI API
  • 8.2. Element location
  • 8.3. Rod crank
• 9. X-script Command shell
  • 9.1. VMI API
  • 9.2. ALS command
  • 9.3. DATE command
  • 9.4. Using XForm and Qt designer

HMI

• 1. RDT
• 2. Modbus

Motion control

• 1. Basics
  • 1.1. RTE scheduler
  • 1.2. Axis configuration
  • 1.3. Powerset
  • 1.4. RULEs
  • 1.5. Standard position loop algorithm
  • 1.6. RULEs execution
  • 1.7. Power
  • 1.8. Summary
• 2. Base project - State machine
  • 2.1. State machine
  • 2.2. Homing
  • 2.3. R3 Motion instructions
• 3. Control algorithm
  • 3.1. Overview
  • 3.2. Algorithm
  • 3.3. Ref
• 4. Object block
  • 4.1. Overview
• 5. PLCopen
  • 5.1. IEC 61131
• 6. Drives
  • 6.1. Overview

RPE - Path Executor

• 1. RPE - Robox path executor
  • 1.1. Axis group
  • 1.2. Library points and paths
  • 1.3. G-code
  • 1.4. Operative mode
  • 1.5. RPE structures
  • 1.6. RPE functions
• 2. RPE : Robot
  • 2.1. Overview
• 3. RPE : ISO
  • 3.1. Overview
  • 3.2. Generate G-code from inkscape
  • 3.3. G-code from CAD
  • 3.4. G-code libraries

Communication

• 1. Serial communication
  • 1.1. RS232
  • 1.2. RS485
• 2. UDP sockets
  • 2.1. R3: UDP Client/server
  • 2.2. Appliaction Client
• 3. BCC communication protocol

Appendices

• 1. Fundamental of automation
  • 1.1. Overview
  • 1.2. Basics of electronics
  • 1.3. Sensors
  • 1.4. Actuators
  • 1.5. Controllers
  • 1.6. Some Examples
• 2. External editors
  • 2.1. Vim
  • 2.2. Notepad++
  • 2.3. UltraEdit
• 3. Version control
  • 3.1. Git