Abstract
The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background informa tion supplied bythe inventors: “Industrial machinery is often dangerous to huma ns. Some machinery is dangerous unlessit is completely shut down, while other m achinery may have a variety of operating states, some of whichare hazardous and some of which are not. In some cases, the degree of hazard may depend on the location or distance of the human with respect to the machinery. As a result, many “guarding” approacheshave been developed to separate humans and machines and t o prevent machinery from causing harm tohumans. One very simple and common type of guarding is simply a cage that surrounds the machinery,configured such that opening the door of the cage causes an electrical circuit to place the machiner y in asafe state. If the door is placed sufficiently far from the machinery to ensure that the human can’t reachit before it shuts down, this ensures that hum ans can never approach the machinery while it is operating.Of course, this prev ents all interaction between human and machine, and severely constrains use of t heworkspace.
NETL
NSTL