Robot System Reliability and Safety

Dr. B.S. Dhillon is a professor of engineering management in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Ottawa. He has published over 376 articles on reliability engineering, maintainability, safety, and engineering management and authored 42 books on various aspects of healthcare, engineering management, design, reliability, safety, and quality. He received a PhD in industrial engineering from the University of Windsor.

"This book does a good job of assembling the pertinent reliability engineering mathematics and techniques in a single volume and applying them to illustrative examples. The examples are oriented toward industrial robots and robot workspaces in manufacturing facilities."—John M. Dolan, The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University"… simple and elegant presentation … easy to read and understand … A very useful guidebook for beginners in reliability and safety … a novel approach to robot systems."—Professor Krzysztof Kołowrocki, Gdynia Maritime University"Well-organized content, which meets the [needs of] professionals and practitioners in the field of robot and reliability."—Kouroush Jenab, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach"… a treasure of current information in a single volume … extremely pragmatic and very easy to use not only for practicing engineers but also for undergraduate/graduate students and researchers. This book provides a very comprehensive treatment of the subject and is written in a simple and easy-to-understand language … superbly organized and very well presented by translating the most difficult technical concepts into easy-to-use language." —Dr. Subramanyam Naidu Rayapati, President & CEO, Agile CloudTech, LLC"There are many examples and illustrations … [that] provide a better understanding of dependability (reliability, safety, and maintainability) problems in robots. The author discusses various mathematical models, analytical techniques, and problems of practical significances. Readers interested in robotics who are not familiar with dependability issues can grasp basic techniques after studying the book. Moreover, they can continue deeper studies in the referenced literature according to the outlined roadmap. This book presents essential elements of robot dependability; it can be suggested as the primary text for courses on robotics and can also be useful (secondary reading) in courses on system reliability and maintainability, automation, etc."—Janusz Sosnowski, Institute of Computer Science, Warsaw University of Technology"The sequence of presentation is logical. Chapter 9 is especially useful. What is important – particularly when this book purports to be using a modern approach – is the application of computer software packages for doing the various data-intensive analysis. This book would attract a lot more audience of technical background (i.e. the no- number-crunching sort) if an additional chapter is devoted to this practical and rather essential aspect."—T N Goh, National University of Singapore"… Prof. Dhillon has produced yet another masterpiece which is readable, easy to understand and ready to use book for robot system designer. … The mathematical derivations are clearly explained and understandable and will compel designers to use it during system design phase."—Prof. B.K Rout, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Coordinator, Center for Robotics and Intelligent Systems (CRIS)"… provides a balance on preliminary introductory topics and advanced contents. The collection of possible causes of robot failure and their measures provides the complete education to be provided at various levels of an industry using robots. The measures of reliability and safety aspects do help the maintenance teams in their study and planning. Overall, the focus of the book emphasizes on the importance of keeping safety as the focus of the robot’s utilization."—Dr Ekta Singla, IIT Ropar, Punjab, India

• Introduction. Basic Mathematical Concepts. Reliability and Safety Basics. Methods for Performing Reliability and Safety Analysis of Robot Systems. Robot Reliability. Robot Safety. Robot Accidents and Analysis. Robot Maintenance and Areas of Robotics Applications in Maintenance and Repair. Human Factors and Safety Considerations in Robotics Workplaces. Robot Testing, Costing, and Failure Data. Mathematical Models for Analysis of Robot-Related Reliability and Safety. Appendix. Index.