Improved design flexibility of open robot cells through tool-center-point monitoring

Abstract The development of sensitive robots is also accompanied by the implementation of open cell concepts. Contrary to the classic safety of robotic cells, separating protective barriers can be avoided with these concepts. For design engineers, this results in an increased design flexibility for the layout of robot cells. This paper addresses the disadvantages of open cell concepts and presents a method for real-time monitoring of end effectors of industrial robots. The method uses a sensor module at the robot’s flange to produce a reference record of distance values within the cell of the process. The recorded sensor data is compared with incoming sensor signals. This enables very short calculation times to evaluate the safety and thus minimizes the required safety distances. The validation of the concept is done by means of a simulation on the detection rate of the sensor module. Within the experiments an accuracy of about 87 % with a single shot data point could be achieved.