Products for industrial robots offline programming

Hi,

I'm new here although I read contributions quite often.

Please, does anybody have some experience with the following products for offline programming of industrial robots?

ABB Robot Studio (ver 3.x or 5.X) KUKA KukaSim Pro/Layout Camelot Robsim Easy-rob

I'd would like to know some info regarding acquisition costs, whether you work it with these programs at work (where? )or at a university (which one and where?). Further, i'd be interested about other similar produts you've worked with.

Now, I'm about to choose one of these products though the most significant criterion is the price. It is for educational purposes and I have to spend only about 2000 EUR for it.

Thank you in advance for any answer or help.

--- Ales

The first is mostly an online tool for using ABB robots, in my experience. I haven't found much use for it offline, though it's still a bit new to me. It's ABB-specific. A copy has come with every ABB robot I've ever used. Needs an ethernet crossover cable. KUKASim is an actual 3D modelling/simulation package. Again, it's brand specific, although you can use it to model external motion units other than KUKA robots. Pretty darn expensive, though.

The last two I'm not personally familiar with, although they *sound* like programs in the RobCAD/Delmia simulation mode.

The key is, do you want to do offline *programming,* or offline

*simulation*? The first can be done with just a text editor, for most of the major robot brands, as long as you know the language. If you want to do full motion simulations, then you get into some very pricey software, and converting the sim into runnable code is always a bit tricky, even with the best software around. Plus, you usually have to get an add-on package of some kind to translate the 3D simulation into the brand-specific robot code you need.