Human safety is one of the main issues in industrial robotics in the past decades. Result of numerous research efforts is new type of robot, the collaborative robot. This kind of robots enable human – robot collaboration. Collaborative robot do not present risk even if human is present in the robot workspace. Risk of injury is reduced by awareness of the environment and accurate collision detection, robot speed is limited as well.
The first chapter brings a definition of human – robot collaboration. Following is short description of industrial robotic history, at the end of chapter are outlined goals of thesis.
In the second chapter are presented international standards for industrial robots including EN ISO 10218-1, EN ISO 10218-2, ISO/TS 15066, ISO 9283 and EN ISO 13849-. The standards contain and provided is information about industrial robot requirements and production cell, recommendations for collaborative applications, methods for performance criteria and related test and safety requirements for integrating safety functions of control system.
In the third chapter the reader can found use appropriate accessories and safety devices, such as camera, safety mat, laser scanner and light curtain, which enable that traditional industrial robots can be used in collaborative operation even though they were not designed for it. Additional sensors contribute to robot awareness of the environment.
In the next chapter are presented the most widely used collaborative robots on the market. Their main properties are divided in five main areas: workspace definition, hand guiding, speed and separation monitoring, safety monitoring stop and limiting kinetic energy.
Comparison of collaborative robots functionalities and related safety functions is provided in final discussion.
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