Safety

Safety, as it relates to IoT systems, means ensuring that systems do not cause harm to the world around them. As discussed in Chapter 1, A Brave New World, this was eloquently defined by Boehm through his distinction between safety and security.

Safety engineers aim to reduce or eliminate the risk of an IoT product or system failing. There are multiple tools and approaches available for safety engineers to analyze the hazards faced by a system.

Collaborative robotic systems provide a great example of the role that the operational environment plays in the safety of an IoT product. Safety controls are embedded not only in the robot platform, but in the environment that the robot operates within.

Proximity, vision, and motion sensors are used across the environment to identify whether a person is a safe enough distance away from the robot for the robot to operate at full capacity. If a person enters an inner zone, the robot may reduce power or stop operating altogether.

Safety systems analyze data and calculate trajectory, velocity, and force to make determinations as to whether it is safe to operate, and at what levels. Ongoing research into considerations such as pain threshold calculations may enable robotic systems to determine how much pain will be caused if the robot and human collide (at a specific spot on the human's body), and require a modification of operations if a pain threshold were to be crossed.