Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated

George Karl Schuster

Derek William Jones

Suresh Ramanujan Nair

Richard Galera

James Edward Dogul

George E Rollins

Ray Carlisle Delcher

Anthony Gerard Gibart

An industrial safety system implements predictive method of detecting possible hazardous interactions between humans and machines or other hazardous entities. The system receives sensor data indicative of the locations of people and hazardous entities within the plant environment. Sensor data corresponding to each detected entity is aggregated, ranked, and weighed based on determined reliabilities of the respective data sources. The resulting ranked and weighed location information is tracked and analyzed by the system to determine current and predicted trajectories of the detected objects, and the system analyzes these trajectories to determine a probability of a future hazardous interaction between a human and a hazardous entity. In response to determining that a likelihood of a future hazardous interaction between a person and a machine exists, the system delivers a control output that places the machine in a safe state or a notification output warning of the hazard.

System or process to detect, discriminate, aggregate, track, and rank safety related information in a collaborative workspace

System(s) and method(s) that facilitate utilizing biometric sensors (e.g., fingerprint, hand scan, voice recognition . . . ) in manufacturing systems in order to maintain accurate safety audit trails. A safety audit system, utilizing a biometric sensing device, facilitates determining if a user is allowed to access and change the configuration of the manufacturing system. Once a user is allowed to change the configuration (e.g., programmable electronics, tooling changes, software updates, etc.) the changes are automatically recorded in a safety audit database. Automatic storage of configuration changes mitigates manual recording of changes thereby enhancing the safety audit data often necessary to meet safety standards for manufacturing systems.

Audit trail in a programmable safety instrumented system via biometric signature(s)

An industrial control system includes a machine, a machine controller, and a safety controller. The machine controller is operable to identify a need for a human interaction, place the machine into a ready state for the human interaction, and generate a ready message responsive to placing the machine into the ready state. The safety controller is operable to receive the ready message, place the machine into a safe state responsive to receiving the ready message, and provide a human interaction indication responsive to placing the machine into the safe state.

Automation system with integrated safe and standard control functionality

The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates providing a safety mechanism associated with a protective zone in an industrial automation environment. An radio frequency identification (RFID) component can receive data from an RFID tag to identify a location. A safety component can employ a safe mode to a device based at least in part upon the location to employ a protected zone in proximity with the device.

RFID/biometric area protection

A configurable control system for operating an industrial system in a reliable, safety-enhanced manner, and method of implementing such a system in any of a variety of particular industrial systems of a given class, are disclosed. The method includes storing, onto a controller of a particular industrial system, a master program capable of being used to operate a generalized industrial system having a maximum number of safety subsystems of a given type, where the particular industrial system falls within a class defined by the generalized system. The method also includes receiving a configuration input indicative of an absence/presence of a safety subsystem of the first type; validating the input; automatically configuring the master program to arrive at a configured program capable of operating the particular industrial system; and activating the controller for operation according to the configured program, which can include activating visualization or annunciation mechanisms representing the configured system.

Configurable safety system for implementation on industrial system and method of implementing same

The claimed subject matter provides industrial automation systems and/or methods that configure available redundancy. An interface component can obtain input data. Additionally, an optimization component can generate a voting configuration that allocates available redundancy to provide an optimized combination of safety and availability based at least in part on the input data.

Optimizing availability and safety by reconfiguring and auto-adjusting redundancy

An industrial device comprises a light emitter and a detector that is optically coupled to the emitter. A first deformable mirror/lens is optically coupled to the emitter, the first deformable mirror/lens is dynamically shaped to facilitate receipt of light at the detector. For example, the deformable mirror/lens can be associated with one or more actuators that causes the mirror/lens to be shaped in a desirable manner.

Industrial device with adaptive optics

The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates initiating a sequence within an industrial automation environment. A radio frequency identification (RFID) component can receive data from an RFID tag. An event control component can invoke at least one event related to a device in a designated control sequence.

Electronic token to provide sequential event control and monitoring

The claimed subject matter provides industrial automation systems and/or methods that visualize availability and safety levels. An optimization component can generate a voting configuration that provides an optimized combination of a safety level and an availability level based upon available redundancy. Additionally, a graphical user interface can present a visualization of the safety level and the availability level.

Safety versus availability graphical user interface

Systems and methods of risk management that employ a risk assessment component to continuously update risk estimation associated with a machine of a manufacturing system. A data input component is provided for receiving a measured parameter associated with a current machine condition. A comparison is performed between the measured parameter from current machine condition with predetermined risk estimations/assessment parameters to determine whether the current machine condition is within the range of acceptable operator risk conditions.

Data acquisition and processing system for risk assessment

The claimed subject matter provides industrial automation systems and/or methods that evaluate a proximity to potential hazards. A plurality of sensors can provide redundant detected data. Additionally, a proximity evaluation component can evaluate the detected data, determine a location of at least one of a person and an object, and identify a distance from the location to one or more hazardous zones in a monitored region.

Systems and methods that evaluate distance to potential hazards utilizing overlapping sensing zones

Systems and methods are disclosed that facilitate tolerating and/or correcting light beam misalignment in a light-emitting device, such as a light curtain. Attributes of the light beam can be assessed and compared to predetermined threshold values to evaluate whether the light beam is misaligned, and corrective feedback can be generated to adjust the position of one or more transmissive apertures generated on an LCD, through which light is permitted to pass, in order to re-align the light beam.

Continuous optical self-alignment for light curtains and optical presence sensors for simplification and maintenance of alignment

Systems and methods are disclosed that facilitate increasing a coverage area for an emitter-receiver pair in a light curtain by generating multiple light beams from a single emitter and aggregating the light beams at a corresponding receiver. A plurality of light beams can be generated by reflection off of a MEMS mirror associated with the emitter, which can then be reflected from receiver-side mirrors along generally parallel paths, to corresponding emitter-side mirrors, which in turn reflect the light beams back to a MEMS mirror associated with the receiver. The receiver-side MEMS mirror can aggregate the reflected light beams for detection thereof by the receiver. According to a related aspect, transmissive LCD arrays can be employed at both the emitter and receiver to generate and recombine a plurality of light beams, respectively.

Method for using a single optical emitter/receiver pair for creating a light curtain using LCD+MEMS technology for beam deflection

The claimed subject matter provides industrial automation systems and/or methods that can aggregate data. A plurality of sensors can provide redundant detected data. Additionally, a weighting component can respectively weight the detected data based upon a confidence of accurate measurement corresponding to each of the plurality of sensors. Further, a combination component can assemble the redundant detected data based at least in part upon the weights to generate harmonized data.

System and method to combine and weight multiple sensors with overlapping sensing range to create a measurement system utilized in a high integrity or safety environment

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Royal Oak, MI, United States of America

George Karl Schuster