Robotic Safety Systems

Book excerpt: This book reboots the conversation about all technologies relating to robot safety. It covers key features of industry standards, relevant government regulations, hardware devices, physical safeguards, and vendor-specific software implementations, including FANUC's Dual-Check Safety, ABB's SafeMove and more. Robotic Safety Systems: An Applied Approach discusses some of the unique concerns associated with remote I/O and systems designed to be controlled over wide-area networks, including the internet. It includes annotated example safety configurations and programs that can be customized and loaded and deployed on existing robots, giving the reader tools to immediately apply the lessons learned in this text. The text also provides best practices for using cutting-edge systems – such as cobots and mobile robotic arms (with some autonomy) – systems that have advanced faster than the regulatory frameworks. Included are real world examples from FANUC, ABB, Universal Robots, and Kuka – the most popular brands on the market. Finally, as an appendix to this text, a case study demonstrating proper use of A3/RIA standards is included. This will allow readers to make an informed decision prior to purchasing these expensive references. This book is intended for post-secondary classes at universities with specializations in robotics or robotic engineering. It will also be useful for robot systems integrators – design engineers, consultants, integration experts, robot programmers.