Best Practices for Intera Studio

This page provides best practices for Intera Studio.

Contents

• Contents
• Overview
• Before Creating a Task
• During Task Creation
• Navigation
• Troubleshooting

Overview

This tutorial contains recommended best practices which will make using Intera Studio easier.

Before Creating a Task

• Position the robot such that it can reach all desired locations with minimum movement. Physically move the arm to each location to verify.
• If on a pedestal, lower the feet so that the robot doesn't move. Mark the location of the feet on the floor so that it can be put back into the same position if moved.
• Secure tables and fixturing with which the robot will interact to ensure they do not move.
• Affix landmarks to tables and fixtures and use them in the task. Use landmarks even if the tables and fixtures are not designed to move. Mark their initial positions so they can be placed back if moved.
• Put the joints into a position near the midpoint. This will help to avoid hitting joint limits while training the task.

                    1. In Studio, use the Joints panel to determine the location of the joints.

2. On the Robot Screen, use the Joint Indicators found on the right side of the screen to determine the location of the joints. The White dot in the grey box indicates its current position and the center notch indicates the joint's midpoint. If a joint reaches a joint limit the affected joint will pulse Red on the Joint Indicator.

During Task Creation

• Save the task often so that if the robot suddenly loses power, few changes will be lost.
• Export the tasks periodically from the Studio menu. Certain hardware failures could result in the loss of tasks on a robot.
• Periodically make copies of the task by selecting "Save As" from the Studio menu. Each time, append the date and time to the end. This allows reverting to previous versions if necessary.
• When creating a pose, physically position the arm, then use the Cartesian View for fine tuning the position. Make sure it says "Robot Tool Center Point" at the top thus indicating it is referring to the arm itself, and not a MOVE TO node.

• Use the joint panel (the same one used to verify the joints were in the middle of the range above) in order to rotate a single joint. Move the slider or type in a joint angle directly.
• In the MOVE TO node, make the "move type" "linear" instead of "joint" to move the tool center point in a straight line. For example, when moving from an approach location to a pick location. However, do not use linear moves when they are not necessary. The arm will move faster and more smoothly in joint mode.
• Use parallel nodes with caution. They are intended to allow the behavior tree to read inputs, solve logic, and set outputs much like a PLC does at the same time it is controlling the behavior of the robot. It is not intended to give multiple commands to the robot at the same time. For example, attempting to throw an error at the same time a MOVE TO node is being executed, it will not work.
• Use the Joint Indicators on the Robot screen to maintain Joint positions away from Joint limits throughout task creation.

Navigation

• In Google Chrome, press F11 to go full screen and get the ultimate view of Intera Studio.
• In order to move a node to the right, it must be immediately below the node after which it is to be moved.
• To add a composite node before a number of child nodes, the easiest way is to cut and paste.
• Use the keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+C to copy, Ctrl+X to cut, Ctrl+V to paste, and Ctrl+Z to undo.
• Select all the nodes in a branch by Shift + (right or left) mouse click.
• To insert a node, right click on a node next to the desired location. This provides better control of the placement of new nodes, instead of using the node palette.
• Use the Ctrl key to multi-select nodes. After multi-selecting, right click in the white space (not on one of the nodes), to bring up the menu while maintaining the selection.  
• Clicking on other parts of the screen (node palette, 3D view, tool bar, etc) causes the behavior tree to lose focus, so the arrow keys don't work.  Clicking somewhere in the white space brings focus back and re-enables the arrow keys.  The icon for the hot keys is visible when it is in focus.

Troubleshooting

• In the start node, reduce the global speed ratio to slow down the movement while troubleshooting. Increase the speed as there is confidence in the movement.
• The basic task has a loop node that is set to infinite by default. It may be useful to change this to loop once while testing and troubleshooting.
• Step through the task one node at a time using this button
• Use the Start immediately from here and Run immediately until here, located in the Right Click Menu, to troubleshoot a portion of the task.
• Use sequence nodes to split the task up into logical branches. For example, place only and all of the nodes related to a pick after a single sequence node. This has several benefits, including:
  • Logically break the task up to make it is easier to follow and understand.
  • During troubleshooting, disable the sequence node (select disable from the menu after right clicking on the node) of a branch that doesn't need to be run.
  • Adding a sequence node in front a group of nodes that perform a function makes it easier to insert conditional logic later, such as a DO IF node.