"Many engineers build safety systems with a higher level of safety than is required for the application," says Peter Schoch, Teamlead Commercial Engineering at Rockwell. "Such systems end up containing more components than necessary, leading to greater complexity and are more expensive than they should be. Thanks to our new controllers, engineers can now accurately size a safety system and its costs to achieve the right levels of safety."

The controllers also help engineers to consolidate the number of controllers used in complex machines. With just one controller for standard and safety control, productivity can be improved while system costs, complexity and cabinet size can be reduced.

Higher communication capacity

Integrated Gigabit Ethernet in the Guardlogix 5580 and Compact Guardlogix 5380 controllers provides increased communication capacity to support the growing number of smart devices. This enables engineers to achieve data-intensive smart manufacturing goals without the need for additional hardware. It also future-proofs machines for end users who may one day need to capture and share more data.

When used with the Studio 5000 integrated development environment and the Kinetix-5700 servo drive, the controllers support the new safe stop, safe speed, positioning and other safety monitoring functions. These safety functions provide more flexibility in the operation of the safety system. For example, a machine can be slowed down instead of stopped if an operator approaches it. This improves machine productivity while still achieving the desired level of safety. These new functions are implemented via integrated safety commands available in the Studio 5000 software.

Engineers can also use the safety functions to support applications such as collaborative robots. If a human gets too close to the robot, the system detects their presence and slows or stops the robot's movement. The GuardLogix 5580 and Compact GuardLogix 5380 controllers have TÜV certification for functional safety. as