Connecting your Universal Robots Cobots is key to understanding the performance and health of your equipment. With streaming data from cobots, users can maximize uptime and drive additional throughput with no additional headcount.
Advanced equipment such as UR cobots are freeing up shop floor personnel to focus on higher-value tasks. Cobots are expensive, learn how you can connect them and ensure maximum ROI.
[Image Source: Universal Robots]
MachineMetrics offers a Connector for Universal Robots (UR) to easily connect to and capture valuable data from any equipment from UR using the Ethernet port.
As part of the UR+ program for all current UR cobot users, the connector enables instant insights into the health and performance of their cobots.
Now manufacturers can maximize the uptime of their cobots to increase productivity and drive additional throughput with no additional headcount.
If you are looking to collect only simple data points from UR cobots, you can leverage the Inputs and Outputs on the robot’s controller.
The controller contains configurable, digital, and analog inputs and outputs that can be managed via UR’s I/O Setup Menu.
[Image Source: Universal Robots]
Though not directly supported by UR, advanced users have the ability to develop custom programs to read data from the UR controller.
For example, you can capture data on the state of the cobot, position, and temperature, but the frequency may be delayed unless RTDE (below) is used.
The RTDE (Real-Time Data Exchange) protocol is effective for use when a user wants to ensure real-time data collection. The interface synchronizes external applications with the UR controller over TCP/IP.
[Image Source: UR Forum]
A UR Cobot acts as a Modbus TCP server, enabling users to connect and send standard Modbus requests to it. Keep in mind, data collection is limited with this connectivity option.
Easily connect to all your manufacturing equipment, not just Universal Robots.
MachineMetrics is the leading platform to collect, monitor, analyze, and drive action with manufacturing equipment data. Our platform easily captures data from your manufacturing equipment and provides a complete toolkit to drive actionable insights for frontline workers and other factory floor systems that improve the efficiency and quality of production.
