RapidPlan Setup

Owned by Sofia Leav (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Oct 14, 2024 by Alex Soler
2 min read

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 handles moving robots in a 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 work cell). RapidSense adds an additional layer of collision avoidance with perceived (unmodeled and/or unexpected objects) in the scene.

To use RapidSense, the following is needed in the RapidPlan project

  1. The project must represent the physical scene as closely as possible including accurate robot models with all necessary CAD data, presets and object states

  2. For known poses/locations, targets should be created in the project

  3. The project must have no invalid edges

  4. The project must be loaded into the RTR Runtime Controller (Control Panel)

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 modeled and are “identified as obstacles” through RapidSense.

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

The following must also be included in the RapidPlan project, if the user is using RapidSense’s native sensor support.

  1. Create a robot preset named “Calibration”.

  2. Model the Aruco tag with the accurate thickness on the robot mount.

  3. Set the default TCP of the preset to the center of the tag. Tag orientation is vital and must be correct to ensure successful calibration. See here for details.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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 RS API for details.

Calibration point

 

View from camera

See section Sensor Calibration | Calibration Requirementsarchived for more details.