Don't Crash - No Safety Fences Needed
At the 2015 Promat Supply Chain trade show, many exhibitors offered safety fences and guards to prevent collisions and accidents in manufacturing and warehouse spaces.
Across the hall, at the Automate trade show, robotics exhibitors offered a different concept: Don’t Crash.
“The Fanuc CR-35iA claims to be the first ‘heavy-lifting industrial collaborative robot’ to work with humans without the need for safety fences.
The Coventry-based company Fanuc’s robot uses integrated vision technology called iRVision to keep an eye on humans and automatically stops if it touches an operator.
This removes the need for safety fences – a previous requirement for all industrial robots – and is said to increase efficiency and enable a higher level of automation, the firm claims.”