Sunrise software expansion options

[UofM FABLab]

Hi all,

We are looking at the purchase of an LBR iiwa 14KG for our Faculty and had a question with regards to others opinions on whether it is worth it to purchase the expansions for the sunrise software.
For Example:
Sunrise FRI 1.11
Sunrise BackupRestore 1.2
Sunrise Servoing 1.11
Sunrise SafeOperation 1.3
Sunrise PROFINET M/S 1.2
Sunrise HRC 1.3

We will primary be using the grasshopper (KUKA prc) plugin, to develop and send information to the arm.
What might we be missing out on if we choose not to purchase these additions.
I have a general understanding of the expansion software but thought I would ask to see if anyone has specific examples of times they wish they would have had one of the expansions.

All the best
Jason Hare 

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello Jason,

It depends on what you want to do with it, but for safety reasons I would definitely recommend getting the techpackage that allows you to set a global force threshold - I think that it was SafeOperation, but it may be in HRC as well. You probably won't need ProfiNet, and I have never used BackupRestore (probably not needed). FRI and Servoing are useful if you e.g. want to control the robot through an outside system, or following an external sensor. I would consider them nice, but optional. Unless KUKA gives you a really good discount if you buy it with the robot, you can also buy it when you need it.

KUKA|prc will be useful to get started, and to manage students crowds as you usually need to synchronize the Sunrise Workbench project when ever the project changes - i.e. it's not enough to use a USB stick as on KRC4, everyone needs to sync the entire project with the safety setup and other critical things that you may not want anyone else to touch. With KUKA|prc you only need to transfer an XML file, like before.
For more advanced interaction - which is quite awesome with Sunrise, quickly integrating simple webcams or custom GUIs - you will need to delve into the Java code as well. We now often couple the "geometric" data coming from KUKA|prc with custom interaction logic.

Finally, take care to choose the proper media flange as it cannot be easily switched afterwards. We found the variations with the LED ring on front very useful for human-robot collaboration. Otherwise it depends on what you want/need - pneumatics, electronics, etc.

Hope that helps!
Best,
Johannes

[UofM FABLab]

Hi Joannes,

We were debating on the media flange "Touch pneumatic, with LED".
Our tech is well versed in Java so we have an upside there for a range of projects we are looking at working on.
For the first year this arm will primary be used for a couple of research projects, individuals are working on. Then in the following years we will open it up to student use.

Thanks for the well informed info.
best,