Starting with our 2027.01 release, which is currently available as a development build, Dragonframe has experimental built-in support for some cobot arms from these companies:
- Universal Robots
- DUCO
- Dobot
- Fairino
Note: Dragonframe is not designed for high-speed video capture, and our interface to the robots is not aimed at that.
To use one of these robotic arms with Dragonframe:
- Create a new scene in Dragonframe.
- In the Arc workspace, locate the hamburger menu and choose “Import -> Arc Axis Setup…”, then navigate to
[Dragonframe installation folder]/Resources/Arc Motion Controland selectrobot_arm.arcx. - In Scene | Connections, remove any existing connections. (You can add them back, but the robot must be ArcMoco #1.)
- Add a connection, choose the robot type from the drop down box, and enter the IP address of your robot’s controller.
In Dragonframe you will see axes that represent the joint angles. After connecting to the robot, the joint angles should show the same values as they do in the robot’s software.
To control the robot in cartesian space, press the “<-V->” button to switch Dragonframe into “Virtuals”.
Please start slowly.
General Setup
If your camera is underslung, you will need to set the tool position’s RX value to 180 degrees (in the robot’s software).
To set the tool position’s offset, use Dragonframe’s Virtual configuration’s Nodal Offset values, with these caveats:
- Dragonframe’s ‘Nodal Y Offset’ corresponds to ‘Z’ on the robotic arm
- Dragonframe’s ‘Nodal Z Offset’ corresponds to ‘-Y’ on the robotic arm (note the negative sign)
Universal Robots Setup
Here are additional instructions for setting up a UR Cobot:
- Copy
[DF Installation Folder]/Resources/Arc Motion Control/URScript/dmc_control.scriptto the program folder on the UR machine. - In UR software, go to Settings : Security : Services, and make sure that Real-Time Data Exchange and Primary Client Interface are enabled.
- In UR software, create new Program, add script, choose file, and select dmc_control.script