Safety-Focussed Design of Collaborative Assembly Station with Large Industrial Robots

The perceived benefits of large industrial robots for collaborative operations are characteristics such as long reach with heavy load carrying capability. Collaborative operations refers to situations where operators and robots share a workspace to complete tasks in close proximity. This mode of operation coupled with the physical characteristics of large robots represents high risks to injury and for these reasons, the safeguarding of the workspaces needs to be achieved in conjunction with the tasks to be performed within the workstation. This article will detail two workstations that was developed in a laboratory environment and are partial results of a research project titled ToMM2, whose aim was to understand safety issues associated with collaborative operations with large robots.