Comment 25 Years ago! (Score 2, Informative) 482
I write software for industrial robots, and design work cells.
When this accident happened 25 years ago, we wouldn't have had the level of safety that is seen today.
A modern robot cell could comprise of light guards, locking guards switches, and a lock-down procedure for maintenance, perhaps even some light guards. All safety will be dual-redundant, based on hardware and not rely on software.
If you tell the system to open the guard door, you want to be damm sure that the guard switches will open and the robot will not be able to run (its also normal to put a padlock on the door, to stop anyone locking you in and pressing "start"....)
The story has nothing to do with robot intelligence, and more to do with operator training and proceedures.
The said robot could have been waiting for a sensor to detect something, and the guy jumping into the cell could have been enough to make the switch.
The average industrial robot has no more intelligence than a bit of Javascript. Sure you can make choices based on sensors/vision systems, but its still pretty dumb, but also very powerful and fast...
Jason (1st post!!)
When this accident happened 25 years ago, we wouldn't have had the level of safety that is seen today.
A modern robot cell could comprise of light guards, locking guards switches, and a lock-down procedure for maintenance, perhaps even some light guards. All safety will be dual-redundant, based on hardware and not rely on software.
If you tell the system to open the guard door, you want to be damm sure that the guard switches will open and the robot will not be able to run (its also normal to put a padlock on the door, to stop anyone locking you in and pressing "start"....)
The story has nothing to do with robot intelligence, and more to do with operator training and proceedures.
The said robot could have been waiting for a sensor to detect something, and the guy jumping into the cell could have been enough to make the switch.
The average industrial robot has no more intelligence than a bit of Javascript. Sure you can make choices based on sensors/vision systems, but its still pretty dumb, but also very powerful and fast...
Jason (1st post!!)
