Method and device for safeguarding a hazardous working area of an automated machine

摘要

A method and device for safeguarding a hazardous working area includes a camera system for generating successive 3-D images of the working area, and an evaluation unit comprising a fail-safe foreign object detector, a classifier, a person tracker and a comparator. The foreign object detector generates a first signal comprising a first item of position information, representative of the position of a foreign object in the protection zone. The classifier attempts to identify the foreign object as a person. The person tracker tracks an identified person using a series of current 3-D images and, after each new 3-D image, determines a second item of position information representing the current position of the identified person. If the position of the foreign object according to the first item of position information and the position of the identified person are different from one another, a control signal for stopping the machine is generated.

主权项

1. A method for safeguarding a hazardous working area of an automated machine, comprising the steps of:
providing at least one sensor unit which provides a respective current 3-D image of the working area at defined intervals of time, defining at least one protection zone in the working area, cyclically monitoring the protection zone using a failsafe, redundant foreign object detector which generates a first signal on the basis of the respective current 3-D image and the defined protection zone if a foreign object is detected in the protection zone, the first signal comprising a first item of position information which is representative of a position of the foreign object in the protection zone, cyclically classifying the foreign object in the protection zone using a classifier, the classifier generating a second signal if the foreign object is identified as a person, wherein the machine is operated on the basis of the first signal and the second signal, tracking an identified person over a series of the respective current 3-D images using a non-failsafe, non-redundant person tracker algorithm, the person tracker algorithm determining, after each new 3-D image, a second item of position information which represents a current position of the identified person in the protection zone, and comparing the first and second items of position information in order to determine whether the first item of position information from the foreign object detector and the second item of position information from the person tracker algorithm each represent identical positions, wherein the machine is stopped if the position of the foreign object according to the first item of position information and the position of the identified person according to the second item of position information are different from one another.