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  • Arjun Kumar and Sam Verghese
  • November 10, 2021

Enabling safety in workplaces with mobile robots using Virtual Fencing

Robots have mastered every position imaginable in the post-pandemic world, from forklifts, trolley haulers, and industrial floor scrubbers in factories to delivery bots on the curb (you can read all about it in our blog- link here). 

Human-robot interactions have increased dramatically in factory environments, posing a safety risk. It’s challenging to figure out which technology, solutions, and workplace activities to invest in to get the best return on investment in terms of profit, productivity, and safety. Technology by itself does not always lead to improvements and depending simply on safety measures and education is not the solution. 

There is a pressing need for safe autonomous navigation to be integrated as a vital component of the robotics software stack, ensuring that it is not only robust and efficient but also functionally safe.  

Functional Safety Standards 

The underlying notion behind functional safety is that the whole system should be dependable even if something unexpected happens. IEC 61850 has evolved into many safety standards for various applications (Read about Functional Safety for Automotive – link here). 

An operator or manufacturer of automated guided vehicles or automated guided vehicle systems (multiple automated guided vehicles) must comply with the specifications of ISO 3691-4:2020. This standard establishes how to assess the automated operations of the vehicles and provides the standards for safety functions. The required performance level for vehicle monitoring functions, different operating modes, and the brake controller are also specified. Both  The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) recently released a new safety standard – for Industrial Mobile Robots – Safety Requirements ANSI/RIA R15.08-1-2020 (R15.08) that outlines safety requirements for various types of mobile robotic systems, including AMRs. R15.08 further clarifies the concept of an ‘AMR’ and distinguishes between other sorts of mobile robots, which is essential for R15.08 to work properly. 

Implementors of Safety Standards 

AMRs promote a safe workplace by defining collision-avoidance procedures, establishing safety zones, and obstacle detection, as well as restart intelligence. However, these are contingent on the robot maker, integrator, and owner having a thorough understanding of what constitutes a safe working environment.  

It’s vital to keep in mind that purchasing a safe robot from a robot manufacturer is merely the first step in increasing workplace safety and lowering risk. When integrating robots into processes, the robot owner and integrator must collaborate to verify that AMRs can be utilized safely.  

The robot’s owner is responsible for purchasing a robot that is deemed safe and follows current safety norms and standards. This necessitates the robot owner’s knowledge of workplace safety risks and dangers, as well as how AMRs may be integrated into the workplace and the best approach to train personnel on how to interact with and operate AMRs. 

The robot integrator is in charge of evaluating the entire workspace or system to ensure that AMRs are safe to use. This includes knowing how elements like entrances, other equipment, high-traffic zones, transfer points, and other system aspects affect AMRs’ capacity to function properly.  

Environment 

As previously stated, the operating environment, like AMR’s built-in safety measures, plays a critical part in keeping humans safe from unintended harm. Hence, understanding what constitutes safe operation and how AMRs fit into it is crucial. 

For the AMR to operate in a factory workplace, the environment can be separated into distinct zones as below: 

 Image* 01: Free Space for the robot to plan a path, Confined Zones & Hazardous Zone

  • Free space of a factory workplace refers to the area where the mobile platform can plan a path
  • Operating Hazard zones – spaces with insufficient clearance. These are regions where the clearance between the sides of the AMR (or front/back of the AMR) and a barrier, such as a wall, is insufficient to allow a person to escape and could lead to a crushing hazard between the AMR and the hindrance (less than 500 mm). It might also be a location where AMR’s detecting equipment is ineffective. These zones must be properly marked with appropriate signage or, preferably, floor markings. The AMR’s speed in this operating danger zone must comply with ISO 3691-4, and it must transmit extra audible or visual warnings. 
  • Load Transfer Zones – These are the stations where loads are transferred. When load transfer stations are  located outside of restricted or constrained zones, they must be constructed to protect people from being injured by the AMR’s rigid components or its cargo. 
  • Confined Zones— At any speed, these are zones with insufficient clearance and where the AMR detecting devices may be bypassed. The limited zones must be identified and surrounded by fixed guards and are at least 2.1 meters tall. 
  • Keepout zone or Restricted zones or No-go Zones–
    Zones that are not part of the public domain (public domain is where the mobile platform can plan a path). These are zones with insufficient clearance that are not covered by the AMR detection devices’ monitored space (monitored space is the volume around the AMR that perception systems can monitor). Only authorized individuals are permitted to enter.

Image* 02: Keepout Zone – Fall Hazard

Keep out zones that are inside the AMR’s working area are commonly associated with fall hazards. These are some of the dangers: 

  • The edge of a loading dock or ramp.  
  • Entrance to downward stairs.  
  • Any other vertical drop that exceeds the AMR’s maximum step height. 

There are areas where it is unsafe for the AMR to operate which are termed as Environmental Hazards.  

Physical obstacles like barriers that the AMR can identify correctly with its scanning laser to prevent it from driving near the hazard, are used to limit this risk. A barrier must be sturdy enough to withstand a fully loaded AMR traveling at its maximum speed, in addition to being immediately identifiable. 

Image* 03: Keepout Zone – Physical Barriers

Virtual Fence 

One of the most useful safety features used is logical barriers or virtual fencing – a technique used to set up an invisible barrier in the real world to prevent AMRs from closely approaching a fall hazard and avoids planning a path around the virtual fence. They are generally represented as an image file but they will only work if the AMR has access to your environment map, which you can generate with an image editor and share with the robot. This allows robots to be restricted from wandering off in certain sections of your warehouse and remain in others, which is especially useful when you want them to continue working in a primarily mapped area. 

Image* 04: Virtual Fence 

Typically to enable autonomy, AMRs require a map of the operating environment to navigate safely.  These maps are built using Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms such as Gmapping, one of the popular open-source algorithms developed by OpenSLAM. The gmapping package is a ROS wrapper of Gmapping which generates a 2-D occupancy grid map using 2D laser scan or Depth Camera and Robot Wheel Odometry. The generated maps are stored as grayscale images in Portable Gray Map (PGM) format by default. 

The popular mobile robotics company, OMRON Robotics uses Mobile Planner software which is the control center for creating maps, managing robot configurations and so on. Using their UI based tools,  a user can add forbidden zone or virtual zone to the map. 

Here, let’s look at how we can use ROS costmap2D  plugins to create a virtual obstacle layer in the global costmap and  Rviz plugins to map the mouse/touch event which can then be used for marking the obstacle information on the map. 

  Mobile Planner Tool 

   Warehouse world in Gazebo Simulation

As AMRs are dependent on the map of the warehouse environment, any restriction in the area i.e. the area it shouldn’t navigate has to be shared with the AMR beforehand. One such common approach is to add restriction zones to the map by modifying with any image editor as the maps are represented as image files. For example, ROS2 Navigation2 stack uses keepout zones using the Keepout Filter costmap filter plugin. 

2D Occupancy Grid Map

In the keep out zones, we can restrict the robot from planning paths through certain areas of the map by drawing a line across the region as shown below (Zone B).  

However, the above method has a few  drawbacks: the developer/user has to 1. manually edit the map file and rerun the navigation stack  2. validate whether the added virtual zone is marked correctly or not (editing configurations file) and 3. can’t edit the map on the go as per the warehouse operations requirements. 

Zone B is the restricted zone 

The above method is not efficient from a user point of view and each time a change is required, it has to be done manually by the end-user. To tackle this challenge, we at Ignitarium implemented a virtual fence zone using the custom costmap2D plugins where the user can update the map with the virtual obstacle zone from the Rviz tool. Our approach maps the coordinates value of each mouse click (left or right) or touches event on the map to cell value where we set the cost of the cell as either LETHAL_OBSTACLE or NO_INFORMATION  accordingly. 

A demo of real-time path planning of a  mobile robot influenced by Virtual Fencing can be seen in the below video. Note how the mobile robot maps its path dynamically as the obstacles in its previously planned path keep changing.  

This feature can be easily migrated to web-based or smartphone-based applications. 

Virtual Fencing is also useful in areas of high traffic which includes other moving vehicles such as fork-lift trucks or autonomous moving machines where the risk of a collision is very high. Also, when the factory workplace requires sanitization (AMRs cannot be deployed in unclean environments as it violates their intended use), virtual fences could be setup around the area until the maintenance work is completed. 

Other use cases of Virtual Fencing 

The most popular consumer robots which implement and use the virtual fencing feature are lidar based vacuum cleaning robots.  

Agricultural farming robots and aerial drones in an outdoor environment rely on global positioning systems (GPS) for marking landmarks in the map for virtually fencing their environments, thus protecting the robot from any collision with humans or from any other dangerous objects. 

Conclusion 

The next 10 years will be crucial for manufacturing, and an organization’s  success will depend on its ability to handle the shift from traditional production to Industry 4.0-style automation. Employee safety must not be overlooked in the enthusiasm of releasing robots from their cages so they may work alongside humans. Although unforeseen dangers are possible even with safety safeguards in place, they may be avoided if workers are adequately taught on the robotic system and the robotic integrator has fulfilled all project requirements, such as appropriate installation, programming, and risk assessment.  

Safety in the factory set up is as critical as component preparation or end part quality.  Safety as a culture must be established at all levels of a business. 

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      SUJEET SREENIVASAN

      Senior Vice President – Automotive Technology

       

      Sujeet is responsible for driving innovation in Automotive software, identifying Automotive technology trends and advancements, evaluating their potential impact, and development of solutions to meet the needs of our Automotive customers.

      At Ignitarium, he was previously responsible for the growth and P&L of the Embedded Business unit focusing on Multimedia, Automotive, and Platform software.

      Prior to joining Ignitarium in 2016, Sujeet has had a career spanning more than 16 years at Wipro. During this stint, he has played diverse roles from Solution Architect to Presales Lead covering various domains. His technical expertise lies in the areas of Telecom, Embedded Systems, Wireless, Networking, SoC modeling, and Automotive. He has been honored as a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Wipro and has multiple patents granted in the areas of Networking and IoT Security.

      Sujeet holds a degree in Computer Science from Government Engineering College, Thrissur.

       

      RAJIN RAVIMONY Distinguished Engineer

      RAJIN RAVIMONY

      Distinguished Engineer

       

      At Ignitarium, Rajin plays the role of Distinguished Engineer for complex SoCs and systems. He's an expert in ARM-based designs having architected more than a dozen SoCs and played hands-on design roles in several tens more. His core areas of specialization include security and functional safety architecture (IEC61508 and ISO26262) of automotive systems, RTL implementation of math intensive signal processing blocks as well as design of video processing and related multimedia blocks.

       

      Prior to Ignitarium, Rajin worked at Wipro Technologies for 14 years where he held roles of architect and consultant for several VLSI designs in the automotive and consumer domains.

       

      Rajin holds an MS in Micro-electronics from BITS Pilani.

       

      SIBY ABRAHAM Executive Vice President, Strategy

      SIBY ABRAHAM

      Executive Vice President, Strategy

       

      As EVP, of Strategy at Ignitarium, Siby anchors multiple functions spanning investor community relations, business growth, technology initiatives as well and operational excellence.

       

      Siby has over 31 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. In his last role at Wipro Technologies, he headed the Semiconductor Industry Practice Group where he was responsible for business growth and engineering delivery for all of Wipro’s semiconductor customers. Prior to that, he held a vast array of crucial roles at Wipro including Chief Technologist & Vice President, CTO Office, Global Delivery Head for Product Engineering Services, Business Head of Semiconductor & Consumer Electronics, and Head of Unified Competency Framework. He was instrumental in growing Wipro’s semiconductor business to over $100 million within 5 years and turning around its Consumer Electronics business in less than 2 years. In addition, he was the Engineering Manager for Enthink Inc., a semiconductor IP-focused subsidiary of Wipro. Prior to that, Siby was the Technical Lead for several of the most prestigious system engineering projects executed by Wipro R&D.

       

      Siby has held a host of deeply impactful positions, which included representing Wipro in various World Economic Forum working groups on Industrial IOT and as a member of IEEE’s IOT Steering Committee.

       

      He completed his MTech. in Electrical Engineering (Information and Control) from IIT, Kanpur and his BTech. from NIT, Calicut

       

      SUDIP NANDY

      Board Member

       

      An accomplished leader with over 40 years of experience, Sudip has helped build and grow companies in India, the US and the UK.

      He has held the post of Independent Director and Board Member for several organizations like Redington Limited, Excelra, Artison Agrotech, GeBBS Healthcare Solutions, Liquid Hub Inc. and ResultsCX.

      Most recently, Sudip was a Senior Advisor at ChrysCapital, a private equity firm where he has also been the Managing Director and Operating Partner for IT for the past 5 years. During his tenure, he has been Executive Chairman of California-headquartered Infogain Corporation and the non-Exec Chair on the board of a pioneering electric-2-wheeler company Ampere Vehicles, which is now a brand of Greaves Cotton Ltd.

      Earlier on in his career, Sudip has been the CEO and then Chairman India for Aricent. Prior to that, he had spent 25+ years in Wipro where he has been the Head of US business, Engineering R&D Services, and later the Head of EU Operations.

      Sudip is an active investor in several interesting startups in India and overseas, which mostly use technology for the social good, encompassing hyperlocal, healthcare, rural development, farmer support and e2W ecosystem. He also spends time as a coach and mentor for several CEOs in this role.

       

      SUJEETH JOSEPH Chief Product Officer

      SUJEETH JOSEPH

      Chief Technology Officer

       

      As CTO, Sujeeth is responsible for defining the technology roadmap, driving IP & solution development, and transitioning these technology components into practically deployable product engineering use cases.

       

      With a career spanning over 30+ years, Sujeeth Joseph is a semiconductor industry veteran in the SoC, System and Product architecture space. At SanDisk India, he was Director of Architecture for the USD $2B Removable Products Group. Simultaneously, he also headed the SanDisk India Patenting function, the Retail Competitive Analysis Group and drove academic research programs with premier Indian academic Institutes. Prior to SanDisk, he was Chief Architect of the Semiconductor & Systems BU (SnS) of Wipro Technologies. Over a 19-year career at Wipro, he has played hands-on and leadership roles across all phases of the ASIC and System design flow.

       

      He graduated in Electronics Engineering from Bombay University in 1991.

       

      SUJITH MATHEW IYPE Co-founder & CTO

      SUJITH MATHEW IYPE

      Co-founder & COO

       

      As Ignitarium's Co-founder and COO, Sujith is responsible for driving the operational efficiency and streamlining process across the organization. He is also responsible for the growth and P&L of the Semiconductor Business Unit.

       

      Apart from establishing a compelling story in VLSI, Sujith was responsible for Ignitarium's foray into nascent technology areas like AI, ML, Computer Vision, and IoT, nurturing them in our R&D Lab - "The Crucible".

       

      Prior to founding Ignitarium, Sujith played the role of a VLSI architect at Wipro Technologies for 13 years. In true hands-on mode, he has built ASICs and FPGAs for the Multimedia, Telecommunication, and Healthcare domains and has provided technical leadership for many flagship projects executed by Wipro.

       

      Sujith graduated from NIT - Calicut in the year 2000 in Electronics and Communications Engineering and thereafter he has successfully completed a one-year executive program in Business Management from IIM Calcutta.

       

      RAMESH SHANMUGHAM Co-founder & COO

      RAMESH SHANMUGHAM

      Co-founder & CRO

      As Co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Ignitarium, Ramesh has been responsible for global business and marketing as well as building trusted customer relationships upholding the company's core values.

      Ramesh has over 25 years of experience in the Semiconductor Industry covering all aspects of IC design. Prior to Ignitarium, Ramesh was a key member of the senior management team of the semiconductor division at Wipro Technologies. Ramesh has played key roles in Semiconductor Delivery and Pre-sales at a global level.

      Ramesh graduated in Electronics Engineering from Model Engineering College, Cochin, and has a Postgraduate degree in Microelectronics from BITS Pilani.