Abstract

With the increasing use of robotic systems in industrial environments, industry safety requirements and national and international safety regulations need to continually be updated to make sure that humans have a secure environment when working in close proximity to machines. Functional safety assessments are required to demonstrate that devices meet safety requirements and can responsibly be released to market.

Safety assessments can be a long process, delaying the time-to-market and increasing the overall design cost of the product. This document explains how to simplify the assessment process. Using a motor drive for an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) as an example, the document describes the aspects to consider to select the right devices, meeting the safety requirements and reducing the overall bill of materials (BOM) size and cost. By describing the steps to follow to meet the safety requirements, this white paper shows how to speed up safety assessments and achieve lower design cost.