EtherCAT-Enabled Depth Camera for Safe Human-Robot Collaboration

This paper presents a novel integration approach to enable EtherCAT-bus connection for commercial depth cameras. Thereby, a microcontroller-based EtherCAT slave is designed which controls the data transmission from the depth camera onto the fieldbus. As a demonstration case, a human-robot collaboration application is designed, where the proposed camera module monitors a five-axis robotic arm, thus ensuring safety through timely obstacle detection, and execution of safety stops. Achieving data transmission rates exceeding 25 Mbit/s and detection times under 25 ms, the implemented system outperforms existing technologies in human-robot collaboration, which allows to reduce the minimal safety distance to 75 mm.