As robots are used more and more to perform a variety of tasks in a range of fields, it is imperative to make the robots as reliable and safe as possible. Yet no book currently covers robot reliability and safety within one framework. Robot System Reliability and Safety: A Modern Approach presents up-to-date information on robot reliability, safety

Robots are increasingly being used in industry to perform various types of tasks. Some of the tasks performed by robots in industry are spot welding, materials handling, arc welding, and routing. The population of robots is growing at a significant rate in various parts of the world; for example, in 1984, a report published by the British Robot Association indicated a robot popula tion distribution between Japan (64,600), Western Europe (20,500), and the United States (13,000). This shows a significant number of robots in use. Data available for West Germany and the United Kingdom indicate that in 1977 there were 541 and 80 robots in use, respectively, and in 1984 these numbers went up to 6600 and 2623, respectively. Just as for other engineering products, the reliability and safety of robots are important. A robot has to be safe and reliable. An unreliable robot may become the cause of unsafe conditions, high maintenance costs, inconvenience, etc. Robots make use of electrical, mechanical, pneumatic, electronic, and hydraulic parts. This makes their reliability problem a challenging task because of the many different sources of failures. According to some published literature, the best mean time between failures (MTBF) achieved by robots is only 2500 hours. This means there is definite room for further improvement in robot reliability. With respect to safety, there have been five fatal accidents involving robots since 1978.

Today, engineering systems are an important element of the world economy and each year billions of dollars are spent to develop, manufacture, operate, and maintain various types of engineering systems around the globe. Many of these systems are highly sophisticated and contain millions of parts. For example, a Boeing jumbo 747 is made up of approximately 4.5 million parts including fasteners. Needless to say, reliability, safety, and maintenance of systems such as this have become more important than ever before. Global competition and other factors are forcing manufacturers to produce highly reliable, safe, and maintainable engineering products. Therefore, there is a definite need for the reliability, safety, and maintenance professionals to work closely during design and other phases. Engineering Systems Reliability, Safety, and Maintenance: An Integrated Approach eliminates the need to consult many different and diverse sources in the hunt for the information required to design better engineering systems.

To meet the needs of today, engineered products and systems are an important element of the world economy, and each year billions of dollars are spent to develop, manufacture, operate, and maintain various types of products and systems around the globe. This book integrates and combines three of those topics to meet today’s needs for the engineers working in these fields. This book provides a single volume that considers reliability, maintainability, and safety when designing new products and systems. Examples along with their solutions are placed at the end of each chapter to test readers’ comprehension. The book is written in a manner that readers do not need any previous knowledge of the subject, and many references are provided. This book is also useful to many people, including design engineers, system engineers, reliability specialists, safety professionals, maintainability engineers, engineering administrators, graduate and senior undergraduate students, researchers, and instructors.

Safety and Reliability of Complex Engineered Systems contains the Proceedings of the 25th European Safety and Reliability Conference, ESREL 2015, held 7-10 September 2015 in Zurich, Switzerland. It includes about 570 papers accepted for presentation at the conference. These contributions focus on theories and methods in the area of risk, safety and

Global competition and other factors are forcing manufacturers to produce highly safe engineering systems and products. This book meets the needs for product designers, systems engineers, and safety engineers that work together and need a single resource which considers all three areas when designing new products and systems that they can refer to. Applied Safety for Engineers: Systems and Products serves as a comprehensive resource offering a wide range of safety topics when involved with product design, engineering system analysis, and engineering maintenance. Examples along with their solutions are placed at the end of each chapter to test reader comprehension. The book facilitates the importance for product designers, safety, and systems engineering professionals to work closely during the product design phase so they can understand each other’s discipline. Written in a manner that readers do not need any previous knowledge on the subject, the book offers many sources for further reading at the end of each chapter. This book will be useful to product designers, system engineers, safety specialists, graduate and senior undergraduate students, researchers and manufacturers, industrial engineers, safety engineers, and engineers-at-large.

This book presents the proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Robotics in Alpe-Adria-Danube Region, RAAD 2019, held at the Fraunhofer Zentrum and the Technische Universität in Kaiserslautern, Germany, on 19–21 June 2019. The conference brought together academic researchers in robotics from 20 countries, mainly affiliated to the Alpe-Adria-Danube Region and covered all major areas of robotic research, development and innovation as well as new applications and current trends. Offering a comprehensive overview of the ongoing research in the field of robotics, the book is a source of information and inspiration for researchers wanting to improve their work and gather new ideas for future developments. It also provides researchers with an innovative and up-to-date perspective on the state of the art in this area.