A modular safety concept for mobile robotics prototypes

  • Stefan Dumberger

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

Mobile robots, especially autonomous vehicles and working machines, represent an emerging trend in automation. In many applications their size and weight is enough to cause serious injuries or even kill people. But unlike most other industrial machines, they cannot simply be enclosed or guarded by a fence. While safety is a serious issue for these types of robots, implementing a protection system is a complex and resource intensive task. As research and prototype development projects are focused towards functionality and proof of a concept, this aspect is however neglected for the most part. This work wants to counteract this situation by proposing a modular safety concept, that can be added to nearly every mobile robotic system independent of application and most important without a huge impact in development work. To comply with common safety regulations, the concept is based on certified of-the-shelf components and is strongly orientated towards requirements of the machinery directive. The developed concept is applied to two independent use-cases to legitimize the decisions made in the proposed architecture and validate the functionality in a practical application. One use-case is dealing with mowing grass along highways in Austria and the other with transportation of equipment and samples through rough terrain during a simulated Mars-mission in Armenia.
Date of Award2024
Original languageEnglish
SupervisorRoman Franz Froschauer (Supervisor)

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