Hello,

Is anyone here have experienced to connect two cobots? The conditions is if COBOT 1 moves and pick-up materials the COBOT 2 will stop and vice versa.

Regards,
Master_Viper

Yes

Hello Matthew92,

Could you please share it to me how you do it. This is very big help for me coz I already frustrated doing this.

Thank you in advance.

Regards;
Master_Viper

We use modbus registers between the robots to coordinate motion so that they each know what the other is doing. 

For instance one robot picks a part and places it on a nest for the second robot to pick. The first will wait until the second one is clear of the nest, sets modbus register that it’s clear, then the first will place the part and notify the other that 1) it’s in the shared workspace so the other robot can not enter and 2) that it has placed a part to be picked. 

You can can also access the IO of the other robot so that sensors can be used and shared among the robots regardless of where it’s connected. This is not good for “real” time sensors as there is a little lag between the robots due to modbus but works well for sensors such as part presence. Also, one robot can control another robots outputs, but only one robot can control the output so whichever is connected via modbus would be the master controller. 

@Master_Viper see attached. (credit: Axis New England)

Some clarification, 1) is the static IP address set in the UR can be used in MODBUS IP address? 2) Is the IP address of the COBOT 1 is the one that I will set in the MODBUS IP address of the COBOT 2?

Regards,
Master_Viper

That is correct, you are setting up each robot to listen to the other robot. You want static IP addresses so that they don’t change at some point because then the robots would not know how to find each other to communicate. 

It's now connected. The COBOT 1 is now sending data to COBOT 2. Could you please configure the sample program below.
COBOT 1 program:
MoveL
  waypoint 1
write_port_register(128,50)
   wait 0.1
write_port_register(128,0)
   wait 0.1
MoveL
   waypoint 2

COBOT 2 program (receiver):
MoveL
   waypoint 1
Wait MODBUS=50
MoveL
   waypoint 2

I tried the above program and the COBOT 1 is not moving but the COBOT 2 is moving from waypoint 1 to waypoint 2.

Regards,
Master_Viper 

On Cobot1 is waypoint 1 and 2 actually different points in space?  Can you watch the program execution using the blue arrow in the lower bottom right?  You should see it executing line by line. Or you could play rhebprogram on cobot2 and then step line by line on cobot1 executing the program  in manual mode basically. 

At COBOT 1 the program only executing at wait 1.0 the blue arrow is not going to MoveJ - waypoint.

Because once it’s sitting at waypoint2 there is no reason for it to move and the program executes the Command faster than the GUI is refreshing so you only see the two wait times with the blue line on them. If you unsuppress the first move then it should move back and forth between the two waypoints, so long as they are not the same. 

Is the set-up of the register IO and robot program below is correct.

Where are you setting the modbus registers?  

I used it when the Cobot 1 is moving I will send a signal to Cobot 2 or trigger the register input of Cobot 2 states that Cobot1 is busy same way if Cobot2 is busy.