Safe human-robot cooperation with high-payload robots in industrial applications

Abstract

In this contribution we present an innovative and trendsetting solution for safeguarding human-robot cooperative workplaces with high-payload robots through a combination of safeguarding technologies addressing both hard <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup> - and soft <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> - safety considerations. This consists of a tactile floor with spatial resolution as a hard- safety sensor for workspace monitoring together with a projection system as a soft- safety component to visualize the boundaries of the safety zones. This safety concept is capable of establishing both manually defined safety zones and dynamically generated safety zones that are based on the current robot's joint positions and velocities, thus offering a maximum of free space around the robot to the user. The paper aims on introducing the novel safety concept and will briefly describe the development of the underlying technologies.