Safety Concepts For Networked Machines And Collaborative Robots

The major trends that will permanently change machine and plant construction and thus the construction include the increasing networking of machines and plants as well as collaborative robots that are increasingly moving into production. This will also have a direct impact on the functional safety of the machines and systems. In this context, security will no longer be viewed in isolation from safety.

In order to discuss the questions and measures that result from this for functional safety, experts, suppliers of safety components and services and users met on September 29, 2016 in Würzburg for the 4th user meeting on machine safety. At the well-attended event with around 160 participants, it quickly became clear: Functional safety must also be 4.0-capable and will continue to occupy designers in the future.

Machine Safety User Meeting 2016

Picture gallery with 115 pictures

Alois Hüning from BG Holz und Metall presented the four possible cases of mechanical engineering that are relevant to the construction from a safety point of view: significant changes to machines and systems (retrofit), the linking of machines, new machines, and the safety-related status of used machines.

The increasingly complex technology also poses great challenges for documentation. So it is already difficult to keep the documentation of a machine that has gone into operation up-to-date in the event of subsequent changes. Under the title "Intelligent creation and use of machine documentation", Kay Lenkenhoffe from the Chair for Production Systems (LPS) at the Ruhr University Bochum and André Barhelmey from the Insitut for Production Systems (IPS) at the TU Dortmund, represented the Cyber ​​Project Connector (CSC) research project Results of the project that has just been completed: A virtual image of all system components could keep the technical documentation up to date in the future. Even after changes to the machine, this concept should ensurethat the existing security concept is still adhered to and documented.

Security attacks also affect functional security

In his lecture, Bernard Mysliwiec pointed out that attacks on security in networked production also have an impact on functional security. The representative of the Merging IEC 62061 and ISO 13849-1 standards committee asked the participating designers to also carry out a security analysis in the future, take the necessary measures and assess the impact on safety.

Another topic that has a direct impact on the safety of people in manufacturing is human-robot collaboration. Assistance robots that work directly with people in a work area without protective devices will no longer be indispensable for production in the future. Here too, functional safety plays a central role. The practical forum "Safe Human-Machine Interaction" addressed this topic.

In the three other practical forums, the participants had the opportunity to update themselves on practical aspects of functional safety - including the operational safety regulation or the validation of safety functions - using examples to learn where typical error sources are and to get an idea of ​​them where the journey is going. In addition, many participants sought discussions with the exhibitors at the accompanying Expo during the breaks. (ud)