RoboVision
Team Members Heading link
- Hanin Abu Than
- Marah Abuhindi
- Ivan Kostadinov
- Ryn Stewart
Project Description Heading link
Today more than ever, robotics is an integral part of manufacturing for automation and throughput. However, the use of industrial robots is subject to heavy regulations and restrictions for workers safety. Between 1984 and 2013, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reported 27 robot-related accidents, of those nine workers died. Compliance to safety regulations are costly both monetarily and spatially, requiring additional equipment. To combat traditional safety standards, collaborative robots allow for safe and close interactions between themselves and human users. But, a collaborative robot will come at a premium and require the purchase of an entirely new robot. To make safer robots more economical, we developed a low cost and fast processing system that can retrofit currently implemented robots. The system uses a depth-sensing digital camera mounted above the robot to monitor the distance of any human in range and disables the robot whenever a human becomes too close.