Fenceless obstacle avoidance method for efficient and safe human–robot collaboration in a shared work space

Abstract

In a given manufacturing setting where workers or robots are coexisting in a confined area and their movements are not coordinated due to loss in communication or because they are freely ranging relative to each other, the development of an onboard safeguard system for a robot becomes a necessity to reduce accidents while the production efficiency is uncompromised. This article develops a two-dimensional dynamics model that predicts the relative position between a robot’s end-of-arm tooling and an approaching object or threat. The safety strategy applied to the robot is derived from the calculation of three parameters: the time of collision predicted from the linear motion between the approaching object and the robot’s end-of-arm tooling, the relative absolute distance, and the overlapping area ratio. These parameters combined are updated in a cost function that is sufficiently alarming the collision severity of an approaching object in real time. This model enables deployment a safe and a productive collaborative interaction in the manufacturing environment where workers and robots are seemingly moving in close proximity within an open workspace with less safeguard barriers.