You can purchase ROBOGUIDE off-line programing and simulation software for about US$2,500/year to off-line program FANUC robots. Alternatively, with FANUC, you can program your own algorithms using a PC and KAREL (programming language based on Pascal), but KAREL does not allow you to do robot movements nor edit the program from the controller’s teach pendant. TP files can also be compiled/decompiled from an LS file (human-readable ASCII file) TP programs offer a limited assembler-like functionality. TP programs are binary files that can be edited through the robot’s teach pendant buttons (or touch screen for newer robots). Robot programming languages probably looked fine a decade or two ago, but nowadays, engineers are used to modern programming languages like Java, C#, and Python.įANUC, one of the leading four robot manufacturers, provides not one but two different programming languages: Teach Pendant (or TP) and KAREL. Rather than changing quaternions with Euler angles (like every other robot manufacturer), ABB simply added functions that convert from one convention to the other. For example, ABB is stuck using quaternions to represent orientation, even though a quaternion is as intuitive as using binary code instead of ASCII. For this reason, robot manufacturers probably won’t change the fundamentals of their programming languages. Thus, robot manufacturers have to offer backward compatibility.įurther, selling spare parts and additional options is probably as lucrative as selling new robots. The reason why robot-programming languages evolve slowly is probably due to the fact that industrial robots are extremely reliable and durable. As a result, sometimes manufacturers end up with different robot brands. Furthermore, a number of businesses work with calls for tenders.

Stäubli, for example, is one of the few manufacturers that offers robots suitable for humid environments, while FANUC is the only one to offer a medium-payload collaborative robot. Unfortunately, industrial robot manufacturers don’t offer completely equivalent product ranges, and their offers evolve constantly. The truth is that some robots are still programmed in assembler-like languages.īecause of the complexity of using an industrial robot, robot integrators and most manufacturers try to limit themselves to a single robot brand.

You might think that a robot program looks like C++ or Visual Basic.

The way you program an industrial robot strongly depends on the robot brand. But this is definitely not the case for industrial robots. If you have a Windows PC, the user interfaces won’t be affected by your computer hardware. If you drive a car, it makes little difference what brand it is: all cars are driven in essentially the same way.

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