Proposed standardized colour scheme for Robots

[TheHarvard]

Proposed standardized colour scheme for Robots:

E-Stop -> Red, Blinking Auto Mode E-stop reset -> Yellow Manual Mode E-stop reset -> White, Blinking

Manual Mode, No live handle depression -> White Manual Mode, Live handle depressed -> Blue Manual Mode, Program running -> Blue, Blinking

Mode Selection waiting for ack. -> Yellow, Blinking

Auto Mode, guard stop -> Red Auto Mode, program stopped -> Yellow Auto Mode, program running -> Green

Auto Mode, reduced speed -> Green, Blinking Auto Mode, standstill -> Yellow, Blinking

The following assumtions are made:

• Each start event while the robot is in automatic mode is proceded by a motors on even if nessesary.
• A blinking colour typically indicates that an action is required, or that spacial care is required.
• A safety reset event is a seperate command from a start event. The robot must go through red -> yellow -> green.

How different people will interact with these colours

Operator/owner:

• Green means all is normal
• White means robot is not in use

• Yellow or Red means robot has stopped/there is an issue

  Operator working collaboratively with the robot

• Same as normal operator, plus:
• Blinking green means robot is working slower due to detecting a person nearing the collaborative zone
• Blinking Yellow means the robot has stopped due to detecting a person in the collaborative zone

• Red means the safety system has tripped, for example when a person exceeded the collaborative zone

  Washing/cleaning personnel:

• Red means robot is stopped and doors can be opened

• Any other colour means robot is in an unusual state and must be secured/stopped before entering the machine

  Technician:

• White and Red means robot is safe
• Blue means the robot is being operated manually (pay attention)
• Green and Yellow means robot is dangerous

note

In the case where a customer uses red to mean normal operation of machines, and green to mean safely stopped machines, then green and red can be switched in the standard above.

[TheHarvard]

@RobotSigmund

What are your thoughts on this?

[TheHarvard]

@AndreBertheussen as well, if you have any comments.

[RobotSigmund]

There should also be colour codes for "Waiting for robot to finnish last cycle and then stop" and "Starting cycle" (motors on, servos on, reset fault, initial network traffic etc). There is also a case for when lightbeams/curtains are used with zones. Outer beam ok, inner beam ok. Operator filling area and outer beam gets broken, however everything is still ok. Im fine with colours. Green should indicate running, red stopped/error. I think there are standards for colourcodes indicated in ISO documents aswell.

[TheHarvard]

Was not able to locate the ISO standard for indicators. do you know what standard it is in?

Do you have a suggestion for the first and last cycle colors? Are these useful for the operator/technician or is it just extra noise that can lead to confusion of the state of the robot?

on the matter of safety zones; these colors describe the state of the robot, not the state of the safety system. In the case where the state of the safety system needs to be communicated more clearly the safety system should implement indicators or systems to do this, with their own color codes.

[TheHarvard]

Did some research and found the following info about the ASI for gofa:

It seems very similar to the standard i proposed, just with white and yellow colors switched.

I also differentiate between manual running and auto running using white/blue and yellow/green. This is not as important for collaborative robots, but i think it's a usefull distinction for dangerous robots.

What are your thoughts on these differences @RobotSigmund? Did you find the colors in the standard?