What is a Collaborative Application?

Robots can be designed as inherently safe to work around people. This involves implementing new ideas for robotic arms including reducing their strength and speed, new types of joints, softer materials, and using advanced sensors to shut down the robot safely if it accidentally collides with someone (collaborative) or if an operator enters the robot's work area (speed and separation monitored robots).

What are Power and Force Limiting (PFL) Features?

• Sensors in each joint — any value detected by the sensor will be compared to standard state and evaluated in order to perform an action (i.e. stop, move away from the force, etc.)

• Hand guiding — easy and intuitive robot path programming by dragging the arm around its working envelope and registering positions and end effector actions

• Round shaped design — created to smooth the surface, remove sharp edges from impact dissipation, integrated motors and wiring, pinch point free design to prevent hand squeeze, lightweight

• Additional safety options — soft active or passive skin (jacket) for softened impact 

What is Speed and Separation Monitoring?

A conventional robot can operate in a collaborative environment if it is equipped with sensors that detect human presence inside the robot work area. Speed and separation monitoring is accomplished using a device called a Functional Safety Unit (FSU). The FSU monitors the area inside and around the robot's maximum range of motion and will slow or stop the robot as an operator approaches or enters the work area.
 

Functional Safety Demo

A cobot in PFL mode will have slower operation speeds than a coventional industrial robot using only Speed & Separation Monitoring and/or Stop-State Monitoring safety functions.