Keeping It Closed – Hard Stop and Interlocking Door Safety Features

A safe­ty inter­lock­ing sys­tem is impor­tant for any robot­ic work cell. By incor­po­rat­ing hard stop and inter­lock­ing door safe­ty fea­tures into your work cell, you are ensur­ing that no work­er is going into the robot’s area when the robot is in oper­a­tion. This, along with prop­er train­ing, will keep your work­ers safe and free from robot-relat­ed injuries.

So, what are these fea­tures? A hard stop fea­ture is made up of a zone ring and two zone switch­es. This zone ring is attached to the base of the robot and has two zone switch­es con­nect­ed to it, one on either side of the robot. These fea­tures are con­nect­ed to the base of the robot so that the switch­es can com­mu­ni­cate to oth­er areas of a work cell, like the doors, when a robot is in operation.

Basi­cal­ly, if a robot is mov­ing with­out being in teach mode (and with­out some­one hold­ing the teach pen­dant), a human can­not be in their space. For exam­ple, if a robot is in zone A and it has to move to zone B to work on a project, but a human is in zone B, there are safe­ty mea­sures in place to ensure that the robot can­not move into that area. The hard stop fea­ture is what makes the robot stop when the inter­lock­ing doors are opened.

But, what are inter­lock­ing doors, you ask? That is sim­ple. Inter­lock­ing doors are doors that have switch­es that chan­nel back to the zone switch­es on the robot. The zone switch­es con­trol zone A or zone B. Before the robot can move to zone A, the inter­lock­ing door for zone A needs to be closed. If the inter­lock­ing door for zone A is opened at any time while the robot is per­form­ing its appli­ca­tion, the robot will per­form a hard stop. In order for the safe­ty vio­la­tion to be fixed, the door must be closed. Then, the tech­ni­cian needs to reset the robot, and it will be safe to resume oper­a­tions again.

For more infor­ma­tion on inter­lock­ing doors, hard stops or any oth­er safe­ty fea­tures for your robots or work cells, call Robots​.com today online or at 877−762−6881.