When the blend radius on a waypoint is too large, the robot skips that waypoint, or possibly several, and continues running.
My feature request is that instead of skipping the waypoint, it should skip the blend and convert the waypoint to a “stop at this position” instead of a blended waypoint.
Details: I’m running Polyscope 3.13.1.10297. I have a picking and placing program integrated with an inspection system that picks parts off a conveyor belt, inspects them, and then places them in either a shipping box or a disposal bin based on the results of inspection.
I did have blended waypoints to make the motion smoother and avoid hard stops, but kept getting the “Overlapping Blends in a [MoveJ or MoveL], a waypoint was skipped” errors. This would happen intermittently when it was picking up the part after inspection, and would manifest as missing the part and either flinging it randomly across the inspection surface or missing it altogether, which would result in a collision when the next part was placed.
First I tried reducing the blend radii, then tried changing from MoveL to MoveJ, and finally I resorted to removing all the blend radii associated with picking up the part from the inspection surface…ALL of them. Now every single point in the program that has to do with picking the part up and delivering it to a shipping box has been changed to a “stop at this point” waypoint…and this “Overlapping Blends” error is STILL HAPPENING. Intermittently.
The only blends left are applied to two waypoints on the way back to the conveyor belt, which are there to control the direction the wrist turns and prevent cord wrap on the way back to the picking position; and a couple blends as the part is picked and is on its way to be placed on the inspection table. These are the only blended waypoints left in the program. They are quite far apart and the blends are not large. If they are the cause of this error, then it is not just skipping a single blended waypoint. It is skipping multiple waypoints on the way to the blend. So I am very confused by this intermittent error.
In any case, it would be a better approach if instead of skipping a waypoint altogether, Polyscope would instead remove the blend and convert the waypoint to a “stop at this point” type. Safer too, as in less likely to cause collisions.
-Then the error code could read “Overlapping blends in a [MoveJ or MoveL], blends removed.”
-Troubleshooting would be easier too, because the user would be able to tell by watching which specific movements were ignoring blend radii and generating error messages. As it is now, finding the problem waypoint is difficult.
-It would be REALLY great if the problem waypoint could be highlighted in the program.