We got some questions from people asking what is the cycle time for the camera. This is a good question as it varies depending on the environment, lighting conditions, parts contrast, number of parts in camera’s field of view and so on.

We ran some tests using a timer that we programmed. We used a thread cycling at 0.008s to count time. Then we set the counter to zero before the camera locate and save it on the first line under the camera locate node to figure out the snapshot cycle time. Here is the code.

   BeforeStart
     count_timer≔0
     snapTime≔0
   Robot Program
     MoveL
       Waypoint_4
       Waypoint_1
     count_timer≔0
     Camera Locate
       snapTime≔count_timer
       Gripper Move 72%
       obj_found≔ True 
       MoveL
         Waypoint_2
         Waypoint_3
         Gripper Close
         Waypoint_2
         Gripper Open
       'If tray_count≟0'
   Thread_1
     count_timer≔count_timer+.008
     sync()

We tested shiny gears in the first place. When we had only one gear under in the FoV, we had a cycle time for the snapshot and localisation of approximately 3.0s. When we had 4 gears in the FoV, this was increased to approximately 7.0s. The major issue causing this cycle time is the light reflection on the part. Being able to remove these reflections would reduce cycle time.

Then we tested black non-shiny parts. In this case cycle time was 2.7s when we had only one part under it and 3.0 seconds when we had 4 parts under it.