Design of an innovative proximity detection embedded-system for safety application in industrial machinery

Safety of machine operation is an increasingly important matter in industrial applications. In this context, embedded systems have successfully been employed to build active barriers that react in real time to prevent injuries and accidents. In this paper, we present a novel safety barrier, based on the capacitive coupling effect, to detect the proximity of the hands to a dangerous zone. Our study focuses on the safety design phases of the system, according to rule IEC 62061, including safety hazard analysis, SIL allocation, and hardware design applied to a real industrial machine for “stone cutting” purpose. Compliance checking of reliability and safe failure fraction was performed through FMEA methods ensuring that the system can satisfy the SIL 2 safety level constraints.