RoboDK can provide cycle time estimates when you simulate a program. The cycle time is the time that it takes for a program to complete. The accuracy of the cycle time provided by RoboDK highly depends on many factors, including the robot controller, the type of robot movements (joint vs. linear movements), the use rounding and the real speed/acceleration limitations.

Under the right circumstances, RoboDK can accurately calculate the cycle time. This happens when you program the robot to make accurate point to point movements (without rounding) and you do not exceed the real speed and acceleration limitations.

Note: When you program your robot at speeds and accelerations close to the robot limits, the real speeds and acceleration will highly depend on the robot payload and position of the robot, therefore, the cycle time calculation will be an estimate. The cycle time calculation in RoboDK could be wrong by a factor of 2 or more.

The robot speed and acceleration are important as they are robot dependent. The robot speed and accelerations (linear and joint speed/acceleration) must be provided as an instruction or in the robot parameters menu. For example, you can change the speed in a program using the Set Speed Instruction. RoboDK assumes that the robot has a uniform acceleration up to when it reaches the maximum speed, then, uniform deceleration.

By default, RoboDK uses joint speed and joint acceleration for joint moves and linear speed and linear acceleration for linear moves. This setting can be changed (in Tools➔Options➔Motion➔Move time calculation).

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Note: In the Motion settings section (Tools➔Options➔Motion tab) it is possible to specify how the joint/linear speeds/accelerations are applied to joint and linear movements, with the right timing, and calculate the cycle time accurately. For example, Universal Robots use Linear speeds and accelerations for linear movements and joint speeds and accelerations for joint movements (default setting in RoboDK). Other robot controllers might apply the strictest constrain. Other robot manufacturers might not allow providing numeric acceleration values.

Note: As stated in the Simulation Time section, RoboDK simulates 5 times faster than real time by default. This setting can be changed in Tools➔Options➔Motion menu.

Cycle Time