Universal Robots real-time data exchange (RTDE) using C#

Background

A colleague and me wanted to find a C# library for controlling a Universal Robots UR3 robot arm with an OnRobot RG2 gripper for using in an industrial programming-related course.

At the end I saw that it requires about a dozen C# lines to activate the robot and send the robot program. I reverse engineered the URScript RPC commands by storing an example URScript created by the UR operating system on a USB stick.

https://industrial-programming.aydos.de/week08/item-sorter-robot-real.html

In the first iteration of the course we had bought the UniversalRobots.NET library.

Related links

Here is an overview of resources I researched:

• sdurobotics/ur_rtde: A high-quality open-source C++ library from SDU with Python bindings. It can automatically load the control script for the robot and even restart it after a safety lock.

• RyanPaulMcKenna/onRobot: A low-quality Python library, but it is the only one that I could find that can interface with the UR robot. It can get the gripper width and apply width along with force.

• https://sourceforge.net/p/firsttestfchaxel/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/Ur_Rtde: An undocumented C# library, which lacks functions like automatic loading of control script and inverse kinematics for controlling the gripper in base coordinates.

• takuya-ki/onrobot-rg: Python library for some OnRobot grippers. Can only interface the control box of the gripper directly.

• RoboDK: Commercial simulator and programmer with support for most industrial robot arms. Features a C# API. This solution is non-free and probably abstract too much for a C# programming course.

• UniversalRobots: A high-quality commercial C# library for RTDE that must be licensed. They provide an academic license with ~40% off at 594 EUR. According to UnderAutomation it is a perpetual license independent of how many students or robots.

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