System architecture for safety applications

Abstract

Control systems for industrial machinery (e.g., robots) or other devices such as medical devices utilize a safety processor (SP) designed for integration into safety applications and computational components that are not necessarily safety-rated. The SP monitors performance of the non-safety computational components, including latency checks and verification of identical outputs. One or more sensors send data to the non-safety computational components for sophisticated processing and analysis that the SP cannot not perform, but the results of this processing are sent to the SP, which then generates safety-rated signals to the machinery or device being controlled by the SP. As a result, the system may qualify for a safety rating despite the ability to perform complex operations beyond the scope of safety-rated components.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.