The legacy KUKA driver is called apikuka and is used in conjunction with KUKAVARPROXY. This solution is now obsolete and is being discontinued by RoboDK. If you want to use this driver, make sure it is selected in the More options section of the Connection to Robot window.

Follow these steps to set up the legacy driver for KUKA:

1.Connect a mouse (optional, but strongly recommended).
It is possible to plug USB devices to the teach pendant or the controller (reboot is not required).
Alternatively, it is possible to establish a remote desktop connection.
These steps can also be accomplished using the teach pendant’s touch screen and the virtual keyboard.

9.Using the KUKA HMI application it is possible to open the main menu using the KUKA button , at the top left of the screen:

a.KUKA➔Configuration➔User group➔ choose Administrator (password: kuka)

b.KUKA➔Start-up➔Service➔Minimize HMI (the windows screen will appear)

10. Copy the KUKAVARPROXY folder on the Desktop (or somewhere in the controller PC)

11. Allow port 7000 for TCP/UDP communication (this step is not required on KUKA KRC2 controllers):

a.Select the HMI.

b.KUKA➔Start-up➔Network configuration➔Advanced

c.NAT➔Add port➔Port number 7000

d.Set permitted protocols: tcp/udp

12. Start the KUKAVARPROXY.EXE program on the robot controller (running on Windows).

Note: Since 2020, new KUKA KRC4 controllers use Windows 10 IOT. If your controller is using Windows 10 you should stop the process nginx.exe before starting the KUKAVARPROXY application to allow using the port 7000.

13. The following steps allow starting the driver automatically on the controller on reboot (recommended):

a.Create a shortcut of the KUKAVARPROXY.EXE file

b.Select Windows START➔All programs➔Right click startup➔Open

c.Paste the shortcut in the startup folder

The KUKAVARPROXY server is now ready. You can leave this program running. This server allows exchanging global variables from the KUKA controller to the remote PC.

The next steps are to set up the main program that will handle the robot movements:

1.Add the declaration of the following global variables:
To do so, locate and modify the file “KRC:\R1\SYSTEM\$CONFIG.DAT” via KUKA HMI. The folder “KRC:\R1\” can also be accessed from the C:\ drive at the following Windows path: “C:\KRC\ROBOTER\KRC\”.

INT COM_ACTION=0

INT COM_ACTCNT=0

REAL COM_ROUNDM=0

REAL COM_VALUE1=0

REAL COM_VALUE2=0

REAL COM_VALUE3=0

REAL COM_VALUE4=0

DECL E6AXIS COM_E6AXIS

DECL FRAME COM_FRAME

DECL POS COM_POS

DECL E6POS COM_E6POS

2.Copy the KUKA SRC program RoboDKsyncVER.src to the folder KRC\R1\PROGRAM. The VER suffix in the file name denotes the version of the program (for example, RoboDKsync543.src).

3.Manually start the RoboDKsyncVER.src program to make the robot listen for commands coming from the computer.

If the RoboDKsyncVER.src program is not running, RoboDK will still be able to read the robot joints if the KUKAVARPROXY program is running in the robot controller.

Legacy driver for KUKA (Kukavarproxy)