Look Ahead: Securing robots’ ‘personal space’

Collaborative robotics has three aspects: the human, the robot and the workspace where the task is to be completed. Much of the media coverage has focused exclusively on the robots themselves—the efficient Baxter and the distinctively green FANUC robots, for example.

With human safety in mind, these machines may be purposely limited in weight and speed and are given a soft surface in case they accidentally contact a mortal co-worker. They have trip torque sensors that stop the collaborative robot, or cobot, as soon as it is touched.

But is that enough? No robot stops instantly, as Newton’s laws make clear. Relying on the cobot’s ability to stop after it’s touched involves risk. Once a cobot collides with a human, it’s too late. But at the same time, setting the torque trip at a low threshold may render a cobot too slow to be useful.

The ST Robotics Workspace Sentry system uses infrared scanning to monitor a cobot’s work area. Image courtesy of ST Robotics.

These concerns are addressed in ISO/TS 15066 on collaborative operation, which provides guidelines for the design and implementation of a collaborative workspace that reduces risk to people. And a new collaborative robotics system is the first one specifically designed to meet those safety specifications.