Collaborative Robot Safety

Col­lab­o­ra­tive robots (cobots) arrived on the mar­ket in 2008 and are expect­ed to con­tin­ue grow at explo­sive rates. They pro­vide the oper­a­tor with direct access and inter­ac­tion dur­ing oper­a­tional con­di­tions. This union of man and machine on the pro­duc­tion line com­ple­ments the spe­cif­ic and unique abil­i­ties of each, while also pro­vid­ing increased flex­i­bil­i­ty and productivity.

Cobots also open the work area with the removal of safe­ty bar­ri­ers such as fenc­ing, scan­ners, and light cur­tains in order to enable human and robots to work more close­ly togeth­er. This will help to improve appli­ca­tion func­tion­al­i­ty and cut down on the amount of space nec­es­sary for a robot­ic unit.

Fur­ther­more, col­lab­o­ra­tive robots are becom­ing cheap­er while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly advanc­ing in their capa­bil­i­ty and ease of inte­gra­tion. Auto­mat­ed pro­duc­tion lines are quick­ly real­iz­ing that inte­grat­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive robots along­side their indus­tri­al robots will help them stay com­pet­i­tive on a glob­al level. 

Safe­ty

So how do we ensure that the cobots are safe with such close inter­ac­tion with humans? 

The intro­duc­tion of a tech­ni­cal spec­i­fi­ca­tion for col­lab­o­ra­tive robots, ISO/TS 15066: 2016, cre­at­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty for safe human and robot sys­tem inter­ac­tion in indus­tri­al set­tings. ISO/TS 15066 pro­vides spe­cif­ic, data-dri­ven safe­ty guid­ance to help eval­u­ate and con­trol risks. It’s basic premise is if there were any acci­den­tal con­tact between man and machine, no pain or injury should result.

These reg­u­la­tions com­bined with quick­ly advanc­ing tech­nol­o­gy cre­ates the per­fect team of pow­er, pre­ci­sion and human’s unique prob­lem-solv­ing abil­i­ty. ISO/TS 15066 will help to pro­vide mea­sures of safe­ty dur­ing the devel­op­ment and use of col­lab­o­ra­tive robot systems.

Set­ting the Foun­da­tion with ISO/TS 15066

When design­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tive work space, ISO/TS 15066 pro­vides guide­lines that include: Def­i­n­i­tions, Impor­tant char­ac­ter­is­tics of safe­ty con­trol sys­tems, Fac­tors to be con­sid­ered in the design of col­lab­o­ra­tive robot sys­tems, Built-in safe­ty-relat­ed sys­tems and their effec­tive use, and Guid­ance on imple­ment­ing the fol­low­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive tech­niques: safe­ty-rat­ed mon­i­tored stop; hand guid­ing; speed and sep­a­ra­tion mon­i­tor­ing; pow­er and force limiting.

Stud­ies were con­duct­ed on pain thresh­olds for dif­fer­ent parts of the human body which helps to imple­ment col­lab­o­ra­tive pow­er and force-lim­it­ed robot appli­ca­tions. Cobots can detect non­stan­dard activ­i­ty and lim­it its force accord­ing­ly using the force sen­sors in their joints. This pro­vides the oppor­tu­ni­ty for robots to oper­ate at full speed with­out any appre­hen­sion of human injury.

They rely on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to make sense of the envi­ron­ment with machine vision or sen­sor sys­tems. The sens­es often involve a sin­gle visu­al sen­sor such as a cam­era, laser, or infrared sen­sor that con­stant­ly con­duct a speed and sep­a­ra­tion mon­i­tor­ing. They can detect their 360-degree envi­ron­ment and slow down or stop once the work­er is in a cer­tain area or space.

Human and robot sys­tem col­lab­o­ra­tion safe­ty is fur­ther enhanced through speed and sep­a­ra­tion mon­i­tor­ing tech­niques. There is a min­i­mum required safe­ty dis­tance and max­i­mum allowed speed between the robot sys­tem and the per­son. This spec­i­fi­ca­tion has required inno­va­tion in improved motion con­trol, devel­op­ment of new robot cov­er­ing mate­ri­als, and bet­ter sensors.

Fur­ther­more, sharp edges and pro­tru­sions must be min­i­mized on the entire sys­tem to avoid injury if a col­li­sion were to occur if the robot sys­tem was acci­den­tal­ly impact­ed by a human.

Appli­ca­tions

Col­lab­o­ra­tive robots are key play­ers in a wide range of appli­ca­tions such as pack­ing, qual­i­ty test­ing, mate­r­i­al han­dling, machine tend­ing, assem­bly, weld­ing, and oth­ers. The mate­r­i­al han­dling indus­try is see­ing the fastest inte­gra­tion of col­lab­o­ra­tive robots.

Solu­tions using Cobots

Col­lab­o­ra­tive robots are reduc­ing ini­tial inte­gra­tion time as the quick­ly advanc­ing tech­nol­o­gy is cre­at­ing a quick­er and eas­i­er-to-pro­gram robot. This also enables them to be moved from one work assign­ment to anoth­er with great ease. For instance, a cobot can be fit­ted with suc­tion cups for the unpack­ing of infant for­mu­la and then a few hours lat­er be switched to work­ing with box­es of spaghetti.

These col­lab­o­ra­tive robots can also accom­plish tasks such as lift­ing and hold­ing a part while it is being installed or worked on by a human work­er. A work­er on an assem­bly line can increase his/​her effi­cien­cy by teach­ing the cobot dif­fer­ent ways to con­duct the job.

Human work­ers can also guide robots and resolve tech­ni­cal hic­cups that would nor­mal­ly stop oper­a­tions, enabling a faster and bet­ter end result. They can con­tin­ue to con­trol and mon­i­tor the pro­duc­tion process while enabling the robot to per­form phys­i­cal­ly stren­u­ous work and reduce the risk of injury. 

Cobots tru­ly pro­vide the per­fect solu­tion for tasks that require a com­bi­na­tion of man­u­al work and automa­tion where it is impor­tant for a work­er to see, feel, and react as need­ed while the cobot han­dles the phys­i­cal­ly tax­ing work. 

Con­tact Robots​.com

These col­lab­o­ra­tive robots are very effi­cient and user-friend­ly, and pro­vide a great val­ue to replace the bor­ing and repet­i­tive tasks while also pro­vid­ing for a very nice return on invest­ment. The man­u­fac­tur­ing par­a­digm is shift­ing, prov­ing that man­u­fac­tur­ers are desir­ing the added flex­i­bil­i­ty and ease that col­lab­o­ra­tive robots can offer.

If you are inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about col­lab­o­ra­tive robots, then con­tact Robots​.com experts. We are inte­gra­tors for a vari­ety of robots for Fanuc, Motoman, Uni­ver­sal Robots, KUKA, and ABB. Our staff will work with you to help you design and build the best robot­ic sys­tem for you and your facility.

Sources: https://​www​.iso​.org/​n​e​w​s​/​2​0​1​6​/​0​3​/​R​e​f​2​0​5​7​.html