Robot Safety Zone Grouping Using Planned Movement Paths
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing robot operation systems face challenges in efficiently monitoring restricted areas around robots due to blocked scanner views and complications arising from planned robot movements intersecting with other robots' restricted areas, leading to unnecessary shutdowns and operational inefficiencies.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method dynamically groups robots into safety zones by calculating restricted areas based on current locations and planned movements, ensuring that robots entering each other's restricted areas are grouped together, while preventing over-grouping that would hinder operator access.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If all robots are grouped together in a single safety zone to share scanners and treat the entire workspace as a restricted area, then safety monitoring is improved, but operator accessibility deteriorates as operators cannot service robots without disrupting all robots in the workspace
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the workspace into multiple safety zones based on robot locations, restricted areas, and scanner coverage. Each safety zone is independently monitored and controlled, allowing operators to access specific zones without disrupting the entire workspace. This segmentation resolves the contradiction by maintaining safety monitoring reliability within each zone while improving operator accessibility to other zones.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent dynamically adjusts safety zone configurations and robot groupings based on real-time conditions such as robot positions, planned movements, and scanner coverage. This dynamic approach allows the system to optimize safety monitoring while permitting operator access when conditions permit, resolving the contradiction between maintaining safety and enabling operation.
2Reliability
If additional scanners are added to monitor blocked restricted areas, then safety monitoring coverage is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines scanner resources across multiple robots and safety zones, allowing scanners to serve multiple purposes and cover multiple restricted areas. By merging scanner functionality and coordinating their operation, the system achieves comprehensive safety monitoring coverage without proportionally increasing the number of scanners, thus resolving the contradiction between monitoring coverage and device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent enables scanners to perform multiple functions by assigning them to monitor multiple restricted areas and serve multiple robots. Scanners are configured to adaptively monitor different zones based on robot positions and safety zone definitions, allowing a single scanner to provide universal coverage across the workspace, thereby improving monitoring coverage without linearly increasing scanner quantity.
3Productivity
If robots are grouped into safety zones based on current locations and planned movements, then operational efficiency is improved by minimizing unnecessary shutdowns, but the complexity of calculating and managing safety zones increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary calculations of restricted areas and safety zones based on robot current locations and planned movements before executing operations. By pre-determining safety zone configurations and identifying potential intersections, the system minimizes runtime complexity and enables efficient operational decision-making, resolving the contradiction between operational efficiency and management complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements continuous monitoring and feedback mechanisms that track robot positions, update restricted area calculations, and adjust safety zone assignments in real-time. This feedback loop allows the system to maintain operational efficiency by dynamically optimizing safety zone management based on current conditions, reducing the burden of manual management while improving productivity.
Data Source
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AI summary
A computer-implemented method of assigning one or more robots in a workspace to one or more safety zones comprises obtaining a safety boundary wherein the safety boundary defines an area around a robot that needs to be monitored to enable safe operation of the robot; receiving, from each robot of the one or more robots, an indication of a current location of the robot in the workspace; obtaining, for each robot, an itinerary of planned movements of the robot; calculating, for each robot, a restricted area for the robot using the current location of the robot, the itinerary of planned movement of the robot, and the safety boundary; and assigning the one or more robots to a one or more safety zones.