RapidPlan Project

RapidPlan - Realtime Robotics' motion planning software - is used in combination with RapidSense perception technology to adjust robot motion in response to sensed information. RapidPlan will move handles moving robots to in a defined location. This move to location command is sent to RapidPlan through an API and the location information can be pre-defined targets or a pose. RapidPlan will generate a path to the defined location which avoids collisions with all objects modeled in deconflicted manner. RapidPlan generates paths for all active robots so as to avoid collisions with one another and the modeled scene (i.e. the digital representation of the system including other robotswork cell). RapidSense will add adds an additional layer of collision avoidance with perceived (unmodelled unmodeled and/or unexpected objects) that may enter in the scene.

To utilize use RapidSense, the following is needed from a in the RapidPlan project

The project must represent the physical scene as closely as needed possible including accurate robot models with all necessary CAD data, presets and object states
For known poses/locations, targets should be created in the project
The project must have no invalid edges
The project must be loaded into the RTR Runtime Controller (Control Panel)

Note

Note: RapidPlan and RapidSense will be limited by the accuracy of the provided “digital twin”, and creating/maintaining an accurate digital representation is not part of the RTR scope. Misalignment between the real and virtual world may lead to slower cycle times due to recalculating paths to avoid parts of the scene that aren’t modelled modeled and are “identified as obstacles” through RapidSense.

Note
Note: RapidPlan does not include a task planner/manager. See the RapidPlan user guide for more information on our ASCII API and Profinet interfaces here → RapidPlan 2.5 User Reference Manual

Calibration: TCP and Robot Target Positions

Specifically for calibration, the The following must also be included in the RapidPlan project

A robot preset with the accurate TCP location of the Aruco tag, located at

, if the user is using RapidSense’s native sensor support.

Create a robot preset named “Calibration”.
Model the Aruco tag with the accurate thickness on the robot mount.
Set the default TCP of the preset to the center of the tag. The name of the preset should be “Calibration”.
A robot target position for “Home” that will be used during calibration, named “[robotname]_home”
Robot Tag orientation is vital and must be correct to ensure successful calibration. See here for details.
Create a target for the “Home” position of each robot. These target names must follow the naming convention [robotname]_home. For instance, if the robot is named “Fanuc” in the RPC project, then it’s home position would be Fanuc_home.
Create target positions for calibration which have the Aruco tag on the robot within the field of view of each camera. Once the target points are decided, auto-connect the targets for the calibration sequence.
To determine whether a target position is “good”, you must run RapidSense with the -f option. In other words, rapidsense -f. Then place RapidSense into “Configuring” mode via a REST tool such as Postman. See for details.