Smart Move: Streamlining Safety with Robotics
Nov 12, 2019
Manufacturing robots is an exacting process. It requires careful planning to avoid costly mistakes. Most importantly, safety is a prominent focus of manufacturers preparing to implement these new robots in the workplace.
There is a reason for such concern. Robotics often involve the transportation of massive pieces of machinery with significant energy needed to perform the programmed assignment. Disaster can strike when a robot fails to recognize a human being or another object in its specific path. How do we avoid such a costly and potentially tragic mistake? Enter the company Realtime Robotics. Their goal is to fundamentally change robotic interplays with their firm's proprietary technology. Realtime Robotics next-generation software algorithms enable robots to avoid colliding with other objects through internal evaluations of millions of alternative motion plans.
This way, the robot can determine the correct path within milliseconds while keeping on their programmed task. This internal processor is state-of-the-art and can calculate nearly 800,000 motions at 30 frames per second. Now, that's what I call fast thinking. The trick is to keep the robot on task while minimizing safety risk to anyone else (or itself). The robot must still achieve its goal while avoiding any obstacle in its path. The robot must "see" obstacles moving in real-time, and then recalculate its trajectory to avoid them, as we humans do. If robots had real eyes, this technology would essentially open them.
The technology essentially opens the eyes of robots – facilitating the ability of more robots to operate as cobots – while increasing the pace of operation, removing the risk of collision and reducing the programming needed to set up a robotic operating system. It takes a lot of programming to implement these safety systems and Realtime Robotics aims to reduce the need for bulky code with its next-generation software advancements in safety leadership.
Read the source article at EHS Today
Safety is always a primary consideration as manufacturers implement robots or begin testing the boundaries by placing robots in new less guarded applications.
It is a viable concern. These are heavy pieces of equipment moving with significant force and determination to complete the programmed task. If the robot fails to see a human or even another object temporarily placed in its calculated path, the results can be disastrous.
Realtime Robotics is determined to change robotic interactions with its new offering. The firm's technology consists of a next-generation specialized computer processor coupled with state-of-the-art software algorithms that empower robots to evaluate millions of alternative motion plans to avoid collisions and choose the optimal path all within milliseconds. The processor can check up to 800,000 motions at 30 frames/second.
