Specifications

Appendix B - Position Latch and Vision Trigger
170 Adept MV Controller User’s Guide, Rev C
B.1 External Input For Position Latch and Vision Trigger
The Adept MV-8 and MV-19 controllers provide three special purpose high-speed digital
inputs, or “external triggers”. These inputs may be used in three ways:
1. High-speed Position Latch – signal the AdeptMotion system to latch the current
robot position.
2. External Vision Trigger – signal a picture to be taken by the optional
AdeptVision system.
3. Combined Vision Trigger and Position Latch (“Vision in the loop”) – signal a
picture to be taken by the optional AdeptVision system, and latch the robot
position synchronized to the exact moment the vision picture is received.
The external trigger inputs are located on the SIO module. The SIO has a total of twelve
opto-isolated digital inputs. Only the first three inputs (channel numbers 1001 to 1003) on
the SIO may be configured to perform any of the above functions. These functions are
described in more detail in the following sections. Inputs 1001 to 1003 can also be read
independently using the normal V
+
SIG() and BITS() functions and the IO monitor
command. See section 7.6 on page 85 for general information about these signals.
The communication between the SIO, VMI, and VIS modules is via four dedicated lines
on the controller backplane. Two lines are dedicated to position latching
1
, and each VMI
can be configured (using
CONFIG_C)
to either latch signal. Two lines are provided for
vision triggering
2
, and the VIS module can be configured using a DIP switch to respond to
either trigger signal. It is normally configured to respond to Vision Trigger #1.
Position Latch
The VMI provides hardware-based high speed position latching for each encoder channel.
This feature is useful for touch probes, or for photo-sensors on conveyor belts, or other
applications that require latching the position of the mechanism with quick response time.
The Position Latch feature uses the External Trigger inputs described above. The SIO and
VMI each take approximately 5 µs to respond, thus the total response time is 10 µs.
Vision Trigger
On AdeptVision systems, a camera-picture can be taken at any time, or it can be set to wait
for a triggering event. That event would normally be configured to be an external signal
from the External Trigger inputs described above. This is configured using the
CONFIG_C
utility program.
See the AdeptVision VME User's Guide and the AdeptVision Reference Guide for a description
of the V
+
keywords VPICTURE and V.IO.WAIT. See Section 9.3 in this user’s guide for a
description of the switches on the VIS module.
1
POS_LATCH 1 and POS_LATCH 2
2
VIS_TRIGGER 1 and VIS_TRIGGER 2
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