Specifications and precautions for Simulation (program execution on PC)

Overview

The Simulator produces the robot motions virtually on your PC.

It is designed to make the performance gap between the real system and the virtual system as small as possible. However, a few differences in the virtual system are inevitable. The operation time prediction and collision detection do not guarantee the precision.

Fully understand the contents in this chapter and check if the real system operates without any problems before you go to full-scale operation.

Operation time prediction

Operation time displayed in the [Robot Simulator] window is approximate time required for executing the program.

Time for the motion commands such as Go, Jump reflects the Speed and Accel values in the program. The operation time may vary when you operate the real robots from the displayed operation time according to conditions such as the Fine setting and servo delay. In particular, when small ranges are used with the Fine instruction, the real robots need a longer operation time for accurate positioning.

The simulation cannot guarantee the precision but the margin of error in the operation time is within 10% when you execute motions with the standard cycle time (with the default Fine settings).

• Considered in the operation time prediction
  • Robot model
  • Speed settings (Speed, Speeds, etc.)
  • Acceleration settings (Accel, Accels, etc.)
  • Load (Weight, Inertia)
  • Others (ARCH, CP)
• Not considered in the operation time prediction
  • Fine setting
    • Error within 10% from the default (Motions of standard cycle time)
    • With larger setting than the default, the operation time will be shorter.
    • With smaller setting than the default, the operation time will be longer.
  • Servo delay
    • With the real robots, the operation will be longer.

Time for the other commands than the motion commands is a virtually executed time on PC; therefore the actual time varies widely depending on the PC performance.

When measuring the motion time between two points, as simple program as possible is recommended. (See: "Measure the robot operation time" - Working with the user created system - )

Collision Detection Precision

The Simulator Collision Detection provides an indication whether robots collide with the peripheral equipment or not when the program is executed. It does not consider the error in path due to servo delay. Make sure to have a margin when you apply the simulation result for a real robot system.

The Simulator judges collisions more accurately when the robot motion speed is slow.

The judgment of collision detection during program execution is accomplished with the 3D display update. When your PC has high graphics performance, the collision judgment becomes more accurate.

In Playback mode, judgments on collision detections are made in all steps. This allows for more accurate detection.

The Simulator cannot guarantee the precision but the margin of error in the collision detection is within 10 mm when you execute motions with Speed 100% on a PC of the recommended specifications.

Motion duty and Overload error

In the Simulator, you cannot detect overload errors. Even if the motion duty is excessively high and the robot should stop due overload error, it keeps operating.

Duty 50% - As a measure of possible duty, the robot can really keep moving at duty 50% with the maximum acceleration/deceleration speed and without the overload error. However, it depends on the robot model type, load, points to go to, and acceleration/deceleration speed setting, etc.

Execution on PC that does not meet recommended system requirements

You can install the Epson RC+ and use the Simulator functions on a PC that does not meet the recommended system requirements. However, it doesn't guarantee the correct motions because the following may happen:

• Operation time prediction is not accurate
• Collision Detection has a large margin of error
• 3D display skips updates