Detecting Collisions

Collisions between a robot and other components can be detected in the 3D world using global settings and detectors.

A detector is a collision test between two lists, A and B, with each list containing nodes. The geometry of nodes in list A is compared to the geometry of nodes in list B in order to detect a collision. The scope of a detector can be one, multiple or all components in the 3D world.

A default collision test/detector is Selection vs World. This allows you to compare a selected component to all other components in the 3D world. The selection will automatically include any child components, for example selecting a robot with a mounted tool would include the tool component in that detector.

In some cases, you may want a child component or node to be excluded from a collision test. In such cases, you will need to create a new detector and possibly disable other collision tests. When creating a new detector, nodes in list A will be highlighted green and nodes in list B will be highlighted blue.

A simulation does not need to be running in order to detect a collision. For example, you can detect collisions while teaching a robot. When a collision occurs, the geometry of the colliding nodes in the 3D world are colored yellow. When running a simulation, it is important to note that the speed of a simulation can affect the rate at which collisions are detected in the 3D world.

Steps

Go to Program tab.
Ensure that the Enable Detectors is active.
Open Collision Detectors panel from Edit Detectors.
Create and configure the detectors.