Robot Options and Motor Configuration Menu
Before control of any robot joint is possible, the system must be initialized with certain motor configuration information: the number of motors in the robot, the mapping of motors to hardware drive channels, and the relationship of the joints to the axes of the device module. The Robot Options and Motor Configuration menu guides you through the network configuration process. This documentation provides a general description of the menu options that display during the configuration process. For an example of the mapping process, see Configuring Devices on the SmartServo Network.
When the configuration process begins, you are shown a description of the current motor configuration, and then asked if you want to change it. Motor/Joint Configuration Menu shows the Motor/Joint Configuration menu.
If you respond "Y" (yes) to changing configuration, you will be asked if you want to change various parameters as described below.
-
Robot option bits.
Certain device modules may have optional features that you can turn on and off with the robot option bits. The robot option word is interpreted by the V+ system as a bit field indicating the presence or absence of various options. The description of your device module will inform you whether the robot option word is used, and if so, what values are valid.
In the XYZ robot example, the option bits are not normally used, so we can leave the bit values at 0.
For most devices, the number of axes is fixed and so no editing of this parameter is permitted. However, for some devices (such as the Linear-Module robot), a variable number of joints can be configured (in that case from one to four) and editing is allowed. Set the number of joints according to your mechanism design as described in your device-module documentation.
For a Linear-Module Robot, you will be prompted as illustrated in the Motor/Joint Configuration Menu screen above.
To establish communication between the system and each motor, each motor must be assigned to a hardware channel. This process is known as motor mapping. Typically, when you select an Adept SmartServo Network node, the first motor of the robot is mapped to the first available channel with subsequent robots using the next available drive channels, either on the first or on additional servo nodes.
Normally, you will want to use all the motors in a mechanism. If, because of hardware problems with your mechanism, you need to temporarily make V+ ignore a motor, do not map that motor during the configuration process. When the motor is not mapped, V+ will suppress all commands to that motor and ignore all errors from it. You should re-enable the motor before completing your system set-up.
To see an example of the mapping process, see Configuring a Linear Module on the SmartServo Network
For many devices, the number of axes is fixed and so no editing of this parameter is permitted. However, for some devices (such as the Linear-Module device module) in which fewer than the maximum number of axes can be used, it is possible to match the joints to desired axes in the robot model. For example, in the following figure, the Linear-Module robot has been configured to contain 2 joints. The configuration program provides instructions on different options available for the joint-axis mapping.
