Safety Critical Systems for Robot Excavation

A number of mathematical and analytical tools are available to assist in risk assessment for industrial and other robots. This paper is concerned with the use of a hazard and operability study (HAZOP) methodology to analyse the range of hazardous conditions and to assess the degree of risk associated with construction robots. In this context, the paper sets out to identify the various hazard conditions that occur in relation to the sequence of operations of an automated and robotic excavator and to provide an assessment of the levels of the risks that result in accordance with a classification of the working volume of the excavator.