Italiana Robot’s primary objective is operator safety, and to achieve this it uses only the highest-quality safety components.
The use of a safety PLC ensures full control over all safety devices, while maintaining flexibility and expansion capability.
The safety light curtains have a height of 1660 mm with a beam spacing of just 40 mm, in order to minimize the distance from the moving hazardous parts.
The light curtains protecting the automatic pallet infeed/outfeed are equipped with a muting control unit and integrated blocking/unblocking photocells.
The mechanical guards are robust and designed for quick and easy installation.
All access doors are fitted with positive-opening safety switches and always open outwards from the work area (panic exit).
To facilitate the identification of emergency exits, the color of the fixed guards (black) differs from that of the doors (yellow).
Near each access point there is a control panel equipped with:
a red emergency stop mushroom button
a key switch for stop request
a reset key to restart the cell without accessing the main control cabinet
Intervention times
1) Reer Mosaic safety PLC: 22.5 ms
2) Phoenix safety relay: 10 ms
3) Reer light curtain (40 mm resolution): 12 ms
Calculation of the minimum safety distance
S = K × T + C
Where:
S = minimum distance between the safety device and the hazardous point (mm)
K = approach speed of the body (mm/s)
T = total stopping time, composed of:
T1 = response time of protective devices (s): (0.0225 + 0.010 + 0.012)
T2 = machine stopping time (s): (0.290)
C = additional distance (mm): 8 × (beam spacing − 14)
S = 1600 × 0.3345 + 8 × (40 − 14) = 743.2 mm
The safety distance can also be calculated using the INAIL website
As highlighted by the formula, the minimum distance between the safety light curtains and the moving parts is 750 mm.
This distance can be further reduced by decreasing the system stopping time to the physical limit of 165 ms (a value depending on robot size and handled load), reducing the protection distance to approximately 550 mm.
However, this would significantly stress the mechanical structure in the event of an emergency stop.
The WinPlancia supervision software requires a safety device check every 6 months.
The password to unlock the system is issued exclusively to the responsible person, and once unlocked, the system logs the event in the alarm report.
It is then the customer’s responsibility to carry out the required checks at the most appropriate time.
