Motor Calibration Overview
Calibration is required to tell each robot motor where it is. This process is sometime also known as homing. Because the encoders used with Adept SmartMotion are incremental, they only report changes in position rather than absolute position. Calibration involves locating an absolute reference point, usually a zero-index on the encoder near to a home switch, from which all subsequent motion can be referenced.
The program file loaded when the robot is calibrated is specified in the Robot Initialization Specifications menu. The default calibration program file for most robots is "STANDARD.CAL", which provides tremendous flexibility in calibrating robots with incremental encoders. For example, a motor can calibrate to a zero index after locating either a hard stop or a home switch, or it can simply calibrate to the stop or the switch itself (which is typically less accurate). In addition, it can calibrate in either direction, and if the home switch is placed properly, can guarantee that the proper zero index will be located no matter where calibration begins. The SPEC utility program allows you to customize the parameters used as input to the STANDARD.CAL calibration program. For details on specifying calibration parameters, see the Motor Calibration Menu documentation.
NOTE: If your application contains complex mechanisms which require special calibration processes, V+ includes a calibration programming package that can be used to write your own V+ programs for customized calibration. For details, see Customizing Calibration
Calibration Groups
When the CALIBRATE monitor command or program instruction executes, the motors calibrate in groups. The Motor Calibration Parameters menu allows you to define the calibration group for each motor. The group number determines which motors calibrate first, which are second, etcetera. All motors in a group complete calibrating and move to user-defined positions before the next group starts to calibrate. For a given motor, once the calibration type has been defined by setting the homing configuration parameter from the Motor Calibration Parameters menu, the calibration sequence can be defined interactively using the Motor Calibration Menu option Teach calibration specs.
The calibration sequence is as shown in Motor Calibration Flow, assuming High Power is on and the CALIBRATE program instruction or monitor command is issued. For detailed information on calibration parameters, see the Motor Calibration Menu documentation.
