Discover controllers on the network

Before you connect, you may not know the address of the robot, or a virtual controller may be running on a port RobotStudio chose for you. AbbController.Discover finds ABB controllers without opening a connection and without a license.

Search the network

The search lasts a fixed time, two seconds by default. Two ways of finding a controller run at the same time: listening for the announcements the controllers of the network send, and testing the ports of this machine, which is what finds a virtual controller of RobotStudio whatever port it was given.

static void Main()
{
// Looks for two seconds, no license and no connection needed
DiscoveredController[] found = AbbController.Discover();

foreach (var controller in found)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"{controller.SystemName} at {controller.Address}:{controller.Port}");
    Console.WriteLine($"RobotWare {controller.RobotWareVersion}, {(controller.UseHttps ? "HTTPS" : "HTTP")}");
}
}
}

Only controllers on the same local network, and those running on this machine, are found. A firewall, a router or a virtual private network between your PC and the robot usually blocks the announcements and the port test.

Connect to a result

Each result is a DiscoveredController. Its ToConnectionParameters method builds parameters ready for Connect, with the address, the port, the scheme and the RWS version already set.

if (found.Length == 0)
    return;
// ToConnectionParameters carries the address, the port, the scheme and the RWS version found.
// The user name and the password keep their default values.
AbbController robot = new AbbController();
robot.Connect(found[0].ToConnectionParameters());
Console.WriteLine(robot.Rws.Controller.GetIdentity().Name);

The user name and the password are not part of what a controller announces, so they keep their default values. Change them on the returned parameters if your controller uses a dedicated account.

What is known about a result

A controller found by its announcement carries its name and its RobotWare version, but its RWS version is only deduced from what it publishes. A controller found by testing the ports of this machine has no name, since a port alone says nothing about it, but its RWS version is certain because the controller was asked directly. Check IsVersionDetected before relying on ProbableVersion.

Asynchronous search

static async Task Main()
{
using (var cts = new CancellationTokenSource(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5)))
{
    DiscoveredController[] found = await AbbController.DiscoverAsync(2000, cts.Token);

    foreach (var controller in found)
        Console.WriteLine(controller.Address);
}
}
}

The asynchronous method is not available on .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.0, which have no async / await. Discover works there too, it simply blocks for the duration of the search.

Try it in the demo application

The connection screen of the demo application uses DiscoverAsync to fill its list of controllers.

Everything on this page can be tried without writing code, in the Connection page of the demo application.

The demo application is open source. The C# source of this page is ConnectControl.cs.

API reference