Robots That Kill... And How to Stop Them

From the first men­tion of the word ​“robot” in the 1920s play RUR right up until the machines that dom­i­nate indus­try today, robots has been asso­ci­at­ed with ​‘slave labor’ or ​‘drudgery,’ as they should – the word lit­er­al­ly means just that.

While robots were made to help man, they are also large and dan­ger­ous met­al objects with speed and force that can kill a human, if that human is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

On Jan­u­ary 25, 1979, Robert Williams became first human fatal­i­ty caused by a robot. Williams was struck in the head by the met­al arm of a robot at the Ford plant in Flat Rock, Michi­gan. The mate­r­i­al han­dling robot had slowed its pro­duc­tion speed, and Williams climbed in to the work area of the robot, where he was struck and killed instantly.

Anoth­er inci­dent hap­pened two years lat­er in Japan when Ken­ji Ura­da climbed over a safe­ty fence to do main­te­nance on a robot with­out prop­er­ly shut­ting it down. The robot arm was still in oper­a­tion and acci­den­tal­ly pushed Ura­da into a grind­ing machine, killing him.

When look­ing at these inci­dents, as well as oth­er doc­u­ment­ed injuries and deaths due to indus­tri­al robots, you can see one com­mon theme – the deaths could have been avoid­ed. These robots do not kill out of mal­ice or revenge. In most cas­es, it is a mat­ter of unsafe work prac­tices around heavy, met­al, robot­ic machinery.

There have been many advance­ments that make the robots of today safer than those in the past, includ­ing the addi­tion of bet­ter safe­ty mech­a­nisms, bet­ter train­ing, new designs and bet­ter pre­ven­ta­tive maintenance.

Safe­ty mech­a­nisms keep humans at a safe dis­tance while the robot is in oper­a­tion. Many robots and robot­ic work­cells have some sort of safe­ty fenc­ing sur­round­ing the sys­tem that encom­pass­es the major­i­ty of the work area, keep­ing human work­ers out of the way of the robot arm.

In sev­er­al work­cells, safe­ty light cur­tains and pres­sur­ized mats are used to keep work­ers safe dur­ing appli­ca­tion oper­a­tion. When some­thing steps on the mat or cross­es the light beam of the cur­tain, the robot will stop the oper­a­tion until a safe dis­tance is again maintained.

A sim­i­lar pause or stop in oper­a­tion can be achieved by releas­ing the ​“dead­man switch,” a switch that is in place to ensure the safe­ty of the work­ers dur­ing train­ing and man­u­al oper­a­tion modes. When pressed, it imme­di­ate­ly stops the robot for all actions, or in oth­er words, makes the robot ​“dead.”

Train­ing has become extreme­ly improved over the past years. Engi­neers and robot tech­ni­cians are thor­ough­ly edu­cat­ed on how to oper­ate and run a robot sys­tem. There is no sub­sti­tute for good train­ing and safe­ty prac­tices. Know­ing how to oper­ate a robot prop­er­ly is cru­cial when work­ing with robot­ic systems. 

As robots become more com­mon, they also become more user-friend­ly, and giv­en the right amount of time, many peo­ple can be trained to safe­ly pro­gram and oper­ate a robot. The tech­nol­o­gy in robot­ic sys­tems is con­stant­ly improv­ing to make the oper­a­tions as safe and easy to under­stand as possible.

One huge advance­ment in tech­nol­o­gy have been the incor­po­ra­tion of vision sys­tems with robots. Robots can ​“see” now. These vision-guid­ed sys­tems are pro­grammed to look at a part and be able to dis­tin­guish it from oth­er parts. Along with that, vision cam­eras are affixed on the pro­duc­tion lines to keep a close eye on qual­i­ty con­trol. These cam­eras can detect if a robot is hav­ing a prob­lem over and over with work pieces, and can poten­tial­ly detect whether the par­tic­u­lar robot needs adjust­ments or main­te­nance. Vision sys­tems have reshaped the way robots work and enhanced their qual­i­ty and per­for­mance substantially.

Every robot has a con­troller that func­tions as the robot’s ​“brain.” This is where tech­ni­cians and engi­neers can pro­gram the robot to per­form appli­ca­tions. The con­troller lets the tech­ni­cians know if there is a prob­lem with the robot’s oper­a­tion, and all the cabling for the robot is run through the con­troller, which allows the tech­ni­cians to cut pow­er if there is a prob­lem or safe­ty issue.

Anoth­er robot inno­va­tion is the devel­op­ment of touch sen­sors. These sen­sors allow robots to ​“feel.” With touch sen­sors, robots are able to sense how they are engag­ing with parts. While this improves the abil­i­ties of mate­r­i­al han­dling robots to manip­u­late parts, it also con­trols the force with which the robot oper­ates and how much pres­sure is applied dur­ing applications.

Robots also keep humans safe on the job. They per­form many jobs that are tedious, and even dan­ger­ous, for humans. Con­tin­ued lift­ing of heavy objects can cause seri­ous long-term injuries to a human body, while the same motion doesn’t faze a robot. With robots per­form­ing weld­ing appli­ca­tions, humans are kept at a safe dis­tance from the heat and tox­ic fumes that can be pro­duced dur­ing the process. Robots can even work in extreme heat and cold, like in foundries or freez­ers, allow­ing humans to stay out of such haz­ardous environments.

Pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance, such as hav­ing the robot prop­er­ly greased, the cables updat­ed and the parts up to date, is impor­tant to help keep a safe robot. When a robot is not prop­er­ly ser­viced, it can break down or act out unex­pect­ed­ly, espe­cial­ly if there are frays to wiring and cables. Tech­ni­cians need to make sure the robot is com­plete­ly pow­ered down before per­form­ing main­te­nance to avoid accidents.

Recent­ly, the Amer­i­can Nation­al Stan­dards Insti­tute approved new stan­dards that allow humans to work direct­ly with robots in a fac­to­ry set­ting, instead of hav­ing fix­tures, safe­ty pack­ages and turnta­bles sep­a­rat­ing them. Also, robots are being devel­oped with touch sen­sors that can sense an object in the area and slow down or stop before hit­ting the object. The advance­ment of tech­nol­o­gy and safe­ty fea­tures on indus­tri­al robots con­tin­ue to improve, mak­ing robots safer than ever. 

With all these safe­ty pre­cau­tions, train­ing, tech­nol­o­gy and stan­dards in place, it is easy to see that robots are becom­ing the oppo­site of dan­ger­ous — they have nev­er been safer! And real­ly, it’s not hard to stop them – their actions are com­plete­ly in the hands of those run­ning them – the human workers. 

By keep­ing up with safe­ty stan­dards, hav­ing the nec­es­sary safe­ty pack­ages, using advance­ments like vision, and keep­ing up with your pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance, robots can become one of your safest and most reli­able assets to improv­ing pro­duc­tion in your company.

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Robots​.com rep­re­sen­ta­tives online or at 877−762−6881.