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Home > Integration > How to get UR and MIR talking via Modbus
Fionn_Merz

Hello Pro's
I've come up short on a project here, and am looking for a bit of help. We've integrated a UR5 CB3 onto a MIR100 AIV, and I'm investigating different methods of implementing communications between the two.
The MIR has an inbuilt feature that allows it to connect to the UR's dashboard server, load a specified program, and run it. I have this working without problem, but it's not ideal, it's quite slow and totally inflexible.
Has anyone successfully implemented any other means of communication between the two? I've had no success with Modbus, but perhaps a script based approach may work, or another interface altogether?
Cheers,
Fionn
Philippe_Levesque

Hi Fionn,

It's a good question here, it's sure with the dashbord server is not the fastest communication protocol. Why did you do not have good result with Modbus ? RTU or TCP? Modbus is really faster. Did you think of using ROS to control separately in a program the robot and the MIR. I took a look on the web and i found a ros package compatible with MIR but i haven't tested it. You could also use C++ language to build your own package if you are most familiar with this. Unfortunately, we don't have a mir here but if you can provide more information or the context of your application i will be more able to help you.

This is the link to the Ros package : 

http://wiki.ros.org/mir_driver

https://github.com/dfki-ric/mir_robot 

Fionn_Merz

Thanks for looking into this Philippe, if you are interested here are a few specific details:
- We currently don't have any hardware integrated other than the MIR and the UR. A Raspberry Pi or small PLC working as a "translator" will be our next course of action if we can't get this working as is.
- I believe the trouble is with the way UR implements it's Modbus client (the UR has a built in Modbus TCP client). It does not support certain functions, such as accessing 32 Bit registers, which is what the MIR uses for general purposes.
- The UR has a set of script codes related to Modbus. Here is where my knowledge ends, I am not sure if these can be used to connect to a 32 Bit register or not.
- This is all assuming that I have not made a fundamental mistake elsewhere, and that the UR and MIR do not support some other mutual interface I've overlooked.
Cheers,
Fionn