Collaborative Robot Risk Assessment for Shared Workspace Separation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for risk assessment in collaborative robot environments lack a systematic approach to guide users in identifying hazards and determining appropriate countermeasures to ensure safe human-robot collaboration without partitioning the space.
Innovation Solution
A collaborative-robot risk assessment guidance device that includes an input device, storage device, display device, and processing device, which prompts users to input basic information, select hazard sources, perform a risk assessment, and display countermeasure proposals to separate humans and robots without dividing the space.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a systematic risk assessment approach is implemented to identify hazards and determine countermeasures, then workplace safety is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The risk assessment system is segmented into distinct functional modules: input device for data collection, processing device for hazard identification and risk calculation, storage device for maintaining hazard databases, and display device for presenting countermeasures. This modular segmentation allows the complex safety assessment to be broken down into manageable components that can be developed, maintained, and operated independently while collectively providing comprehensive safety evaluation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-storing comprehensive hazard source information and risk assessment criteria in the storage device before actual risk assessments are conducted. The processing device uses these pre-prepared databases to quickly identify hazards and calculate risks during operation, eliminating the need to create assessment frameworks from scratch for each evaluation and thereby improving safety assessment efficiency without proportionally increasing operational complexity.
2Reliability
If countermeasure proposals are provided to separate humans and robots without dividing space, then safety is improved, but ease of operation decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The risk assessment system operates on a self-service principle where the processing device automatically performs hazard identification, risk calculation, and countermeasure generation based on input parameters. The system serves itself by using pre-stored hazard databases and risk assessment algorithms to produce safety evaluations and separation countermeasures without requiring expert users to manually perform complex safety analyses, thereby improving safety while maintaining operational simplicity through automated intelligence.
Solution Approach 2:
The display device acts as an intermediary between the complex processing device and the user. It translates complex risk assessment results and processing device outputs into user-friendly visual presentations of safety risks and recommended countermeasures. This intermediary layer simplifies the user interface, allowing operators to easily understand and implement safety recommendations without needing to comprehend the complex underlying risk assessment algorithms and data processing operations.
Data Source
AI summary
A collaborative-robot risk assessment guidance device, including: an input device that receives inputs; a storage device; a display device; and at least one processing device, where the processing device prompts a user to input basic information including conditions for collaborating with people, prompts the user to select at least one candidate information item for hazard sources stored in the storage device in association with the input basic information, performs a risk assessment on a basis of risk specifics information stored in the storage device in association with the selected candidate information item for the hazard sources, determines whether a result of the risk assessment is at or below an acceptable risk, and displays, on the display device, countermeasure proposals for separating people and a collaborative robot without partitioning a space therebetween in a case in which the result of the risk assessment is not at or below the acceptable risk.