It is possible to control the movement of a robot from the RoboDK API, for example, to program a robot from a Python program or a C# application.

The Run on robot option is managed automatically when a Python program is run from RoboDK. Follow these steps to run a Python program on the robot:

1.Right click a Python program

2.Select Run on robot

The program should start running on the robot and the robot connection status will be updated accordingly.

Tip: Select the macro SampleOfflineProgramming.py from the C:/RoboDK/Library/Macros/ folder to test it with a hexagonal path around the current location of the robot.

Robot Drivers - Image 7

If the program is executed outside the RoboDK’s GUI (for debugging purposes, or if we are using the RoboDK API for C# for example), we can set the RunMode using RDK.setRunMode to RUNMODE_RUN_ROBOT. This will force the program to run on the robot. It is also possible to establish the connection using robot.Connect().

Note: RoboDK automatically sets the RunType to RUNMODE_SIMULATE by default the RoboDK API is started, unless a Python program is generated or set to Run on robot using the GUI.

The following code shows a brief example to establish a connection with the robot directly from the API:

# Start the RoboDK API

RDK = Robolink()

robot = RDK.Item('',ITEM_TYPE_ROBOT)

# Connect to the robot using default connetion parameters

success = robot.Connect()

status, status_msg = robot.ConnectedState()

if status != ROBOTCOM_READY:

# Stop if the connection did not succeed

raise Exception("Failed to connect: " + status_msg)

# Set to run the robot commands on the robot

RDK.setRunMode(RUNMODE_RUN_ROBOT)

# Note: This is set automatically if we use

# robot.Connect() through the API

# Move the robot:

robot.MoveJ([10,20,30,40,50,60])

Tip: Select the macro SampleOnlineProgramming.py from the C:/RoboDK/Library/Macros/ folder for a more complete example. Also, more examples of online programming using the Python API and the C# API are available in the RoboDK API section.

Note: It is also possible to trigger a program created using the GUI from the RoboDK API the same way it can be triggered manually using the GUI, as shown in the previous section. The following example shows how:

prog = RDK.Item('MainProgram', ITEM_TYPE_PROGRAM)

prog.setRunType(PROGRAM_RUN_ON_ROBOT) # Set the run on robot option

# Set to PROGRAM_RUN_ON_SIMULATOR to run on the simulator only

prog.RunProgram()

while prog.Busy() == 1:

pause(0.1)

print("Program done")

Using the API