Kineo Flexible Cables Version 8.0
Kineo Flexible Cables is a software component for simulating cables, hoses, pipes and simular compliant components with interactive performance. It’s well-suited to modeling the deformation and configuration of cables in robotics systems, such as pneumatic hoses and electrical cables, to minimize failure on the factory floor. New features released since version 7.0 include :
Precurved Cables
Kineo Flexible Cables computes the configuration of a cable based on user-defined parameters, including the cable’s physical properties (radius, Young’s modulus, etc.), the attachment points through which it passes and the resting length of the cable when no tension is applied. Version 8 now enables a predefined rest shape to be taken into account. This is the shape the cable adopts when no external forces are applied and is represented using a polyline. The new functionality can improve the representation of real-world cables that have non-linear resting states, for example, looped cables.
Cable Reinforcements
Industrial manufacturing processes often put power and control cables under significant mechanical stress. To prevent premature wear, cables are typically reinforced with protective sleeves in regions where the cable requires additional support, or protection from the operating environment. New functionality has been coded in Kineo Flexible Cables enabling users to simulate cable reinforcements easily by specifying the start and end positions of the protective sleeve, together with its physical properties. Cable reinforcements are compatible with our newly released precurved cables.
Point Cloud Contact Simulation
During motion simulation, Kineo Flexible Cables computes cable configurations that take account of objects in the virtual environment to prevent colliding states. For example, at each time step in a robot simulation, cables will be deformed/routed to avoid colliding with the robot and other obstacles in its operating environment. Previously, such obstacles had to be defined in the simulation using 3D polygonal representations. It’s now possible to define obstacles using point cloud representations. This enables applications to evaluate operating scenarios more directly, using data that has been scanned from real-world operating environments.
New prototyping and development resources
KineoWorks Interact :
KineoWorks Interact is a utility that enables you to build an application for Kineo components quickly and easily with tools for implementing 3D visualization, user-interaction, data import/export, and other application features with the minimum of coding. We’ve enhanced KineoWorks Interact to take more comprehensive account of features and functionality in Kineo Flexible Cables. This video shows KineoWorks Interact being used to rapidly develop a cable simulation application:
New tutorials :
Kineo components are delivered with a comprehensive set of tutorials to accelerate the integration of these components into your application. New tutorials accompany Kineo Flexible Cables version 8 to assist developers in understanding and implementing major recent functionality, including:
- Pre-Curved cables
- Reinforcements
- Retraction Systems
Support for new platforms
Kineo Flexible Cables is now available for Debian Linux platforms. Supported versions include Debian 10 “Buster” and Debian 9 “Stretch”.
Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 has been newly added as a supported development environment.
Further information
Please contact the author for further information about Kineo Flexible Cables version 8.
