A robotic arm control system including a robotic arm configured to deploy one or more tools in an operating space, one or more sensors, and a control system operably configured to: scan the operating space with the one or more sensors, identify a surface of the operating space based at least in part upon information sensed by the one or more sensors, establish a virtual barrier offset from the surface, and limit movement of the robotic arm based at least in part upon the virtual barrier.

A system according to at least one embodiment of the present disclosure includes a processor; and a memory coupled with the processor and including data stored thereon that, when processed by the processor, enables the processor to: predict, at a first time, a motion of an object during a surgical procedure and at a second time following the first time; and update, based on the predicted motion of the object, a surgical navigation path of a robotic arm.

A robotic device including one or more proximity sensing systems coupled to various portions of a robot body. The proximity sensing systems detect a distance of an object about the robot body and the robotic device reacts based on the detected distance. The proximity sensing systems obtain a three-dimensional (3D) profile of the object to determine a category of the object. The distance of the object is detected multiple times in a sequence to determine a movement path of the object.

Image sensors distributed about a workcell including industrial machinery are registered using a registration object and an information tag associated therewith. The tag contains information specifying the location of the object and/or the pose of the object. This information is acquired along with images of the registration object, and the sensors are registered based at least in part on the images and the acquired information.

A system and method of collision avoidance includes determining a position and an orientation, the position and the orientation being of a repositionable arm or of an instrument, the repositionable arm being configured to support the instrument; determining, based on the position and the orientation, a plurality of first virtual boundaries around the repositionable arm or the instrument; determining a second virtual boundary around an object; determining a first overlap force on the repositionable arm due to a first overlap between the second virtual boundary and a virtual boundary of the plurality of first virtual boundaries; determining a tip force on a distal end of the instrument based on the first overlap force; and applying the tip force as a first feedback force on the instrument or the repositionable arm.

Safety systems in distributed factory workcells intercommunicate or communicate with a central controller so that when a person, robot or vehicle passes from one workcell or space into another on the same factory floor, the new workcell or space need not repeat the tasks of analysis and classification and can instead immediately integrate the new entrant into the existing workcell or space-monitoring schema. The workcell or space can also communicate attributes such as occlusions, unsafe areas, movement speed, and object trajectories, enabling rapid reaction by the monitoring system of the new workcell or space.

A mobile robot includes a body, a propulsion module, an ultrasound sensor module that is configured to detect a boundary of a cleaning area using a sound wave, and a controller configured to control the propulsion module based on the determined boundary. The ultrasound sensor module may include an ultrasonic sensor unit and a boundary detector. The sensor unit may emit the sound wave, receive the reflected sound wave from a target, and output a sound wave signal. And, the boundary detector may analyze the sound wave signal to detect the boundary of the cleaning area.

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.

A computer-assisted surgery system allows a user to control movements of a surgical tool by providing, to a control unit, inputs in the form of measured displacements via a movable part of a handle while treating a region of interest with the tool. The control unit is configured to enable motion of the tool with respect to an anatomical structure only if a user moves the movable part, receive the measured displacement of the movable part, receive from a localization unit the relative position and orientation of the tool relative to the anatomical structure, based on the measured displacement, on the surgical plan and on the relative position and orientation of the tool relative to the anatomical structure, compute an instruction to send to a motorized joint to move a robotic arm to operate the tool according to an optimal trajectory, and send the computed instruction to the motorized joint.

A robot control device executes assist control for generating an assist force in a direction of an external force applied to a robot in a case where a position of the robot is located in a first area set in a work area of the robot when the external force is applied to the robot. The robot control device stops the execution of the assist control in a case where the position of the robot is located in a second area set outside the work area of the robot. The robot control device restricts the execution of the assist control in a case where the position of the robot is located in a third area set outside the first area and inside the second area.