Workbench Robot Light Projection for Shared Workspace Safety
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current workbenches with collaborative robots lack effective methods to ensure safe and efficient human-robot collaboration, particularly in determining movement paths and indicating safe working spaces, which can lead to collisions and reduced productivity.
Innovation Solution
A workbench system incorporating a multi-axis robot, a visible light projector, a camera, and a controller that projects visible light indications to define safe working spaces and movement paths, allowing the robot to move within a limited volume while ensuring user safety and awareness of its movement.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the robot operates in a common workspace with humans without visible light indications, then the workspace utilization is maximized, but the safety of human-robot collaboration deteriorates due to increased risk of collisions
Solution Approach 1:
A visible light projector is introduced as an intermediary device between the robot controller and the human operator. The projector casts visible light indications onto the workspace surfaces, serving as a mediator that communicates the robot's movement path and limited volume to humans without requiring direct sensor feedback or complex communication interfaces. This resolves the contradiction by enhancing safety through visual awareness while maintaining relatively simple system architecture.
2Reliability
If the robot moves freely without defined movement paths, then the productivity is improved, but the safety deteriorates due to uncontrolled movements in shared workspace
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by pre-defining and visually indicating the robot's movement paths and limited operating volumes before the robot actually moves. The visible light projector casts indications showing the planned trajectory and workspace boundaries in advance, allowing human operators to anticipate robot movements and adjust their actions accordingly. This enables safe automated operation without requiring real-time human intervention, thus maintaining productivity while improving safety.
3Reliability
If visible light indications are projected to define safe working spaces, then the safety is improved, but the workspace illumination requirements worsen due to additional light projection needs
Solution Approach 1:
The visible light projector applies local quality by illuminating only the specific areas relevant to robot operation - namely the movement paths and limited volumes where the robot operates. Rather than uniformly illuminating the entire workspace, the system projects light indications locally onto surfaces within the robot's operational envelope. This provides sufficient visual information for safety while minimizing overall illumination requirements and energy consumption.
4Loss of information
If the robot operates without visible light indications of movement paths, then the device complexity is reduced, but the loss of information worsens as humans cannot anticipate robot movements
Solution Approach 1:
The system replaces mechanical or electronic communication methods with optical information transmission. Instead of using complex sensors, feedback systems, or direct communication interfaces to convey robot movement information to humans, the invention uses visible light projection to directly display movement paths and workspace boundaries. This substitution provides rich visual information about robot intentions while maintaining relatively simple system architecture.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The system enhances safety by preventing collisions and improving productivity by allowing humans and robots to work together effectively, reducing the likelihood of injury and damage while ensuring accurate validation and assembly processes.
Implementation Method 1
a visible light projector; control the visible light projector to project a visible light indication onto at least one of a surface of the workbench and a surface of the workspace
Implementation Method 2
a camera; control the robot such that the robot presents multiple different views of the object held by the end effector to the camera; control the camera to capture images of multiple different views of the object held by the end effector
Data Source
AI summary
A workbench system comprising: a workbench; a multi-axis robot; a visible light projector; and a controller; wherein the workbench and the robot are located in a common workspace; the controller is configured to: determine a movement operation for the robot; and, using the determined movement operation, control the visible light projector to project a visible light indication onto at least one of a surface of the workbench and a surface of the workspace; the visible light indication indicates a limited area of the workbench and/or workspace, the limited area corresponding to a limited volume of space; and the movement operation is such that, if the robot performs the movement operation, the robot moves entirely within only the limited volume of space.