Robot independent programming system

Robot Independent Programming System (RIPS) is a Python 3 based adaptive intermediate controller for robotic arms with additional modeling and simulation capabilities. Using data from input python code and its stored models, RIPS can create appropriately formatted files to control of the physical machines with which it can interface. This eliminates the need for users of RIPS to have familiarity with a machine’s potentially unique communication protocols and programming languages in order to implement controls. For example, a user of RIPS who is familiar with Python will be able to control two different robots, such as a KUKA and a Fanuc, without knowledge of the language native to those machines. This functionality is grouped with building, simulation, and visualization packages available in a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI). Using a system of modular storage classes, RIPS is capable of creating virtual models representing the user’s physical system which can be manipulated by, and graphically displayed to the user within the GUI. This ability to simulate and implement control functions using python across a variety of platforms, while avoiding the need to learn several different interfacing methods, makes RIPS a valuable tool in the field of robotics. Two example cases using KUKA KRL are discussed to demonstrate RIPS capabilities. In the first case, RIPS will take user input commands and translate them to KRL to be sent and implemented on a KR 6R 700 robot, and in the second case information will be requested from that robot to update positional information within RIPS. An additional example, RIPS will be used to control a Raspberry Pi based robot through a real time Google Firebase database, handling data transfer via the database’s python library, pyrebase. These examples will demonstrate RIPS’s capability to use Python code to establish bidirectional communications with industrial and small application machines using differing methods of programming.