ANSI/RIA R15.08-1/2 and ANSI/A3 R15.08-2 Compliant Safety-Oriented Software Components for Industrial Mobile Robots

Recent advancements in industrial robotics have led to the introduction of updated safety standards, including ANSI/RIA R15.08-1/2 and ANSI/A3 R15.08-2, which establish guidelines for Industrial Mobile Robots (IMRs). However, many aspects of these standards have not yet been explored in the context of IMR safety component development. This paper presents the design and integration of safety-oriented software components that align with these standards, with the goal of enhancing safety and efficiency of IMRs in intralogistics environments. We propose a multi-layer motion planning architecture, a planning and control framework for the manipulator, and a whole-body impedance controller that treats the IMR as a unified system. Additionally, we integrate components for robot intent communication, human perception, and human-robot spatial interaction to improve safety and user experience. Validation experiments in industrial settings demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed components in ensuring safe and adaptive IMR operation in shared and collaborative human-robot workspaces. The video demo can be seen at https://youtu.be/Zmt_1h1CSlE.