Functional requirements elicitation approach for the design and integration of robotic system for automation

Implementing robotic systems in industrial production enables manufacturing automation, boosting process engineering efficiency. However, new issues regarding process and product safety are raised due to the introduction of robots. Ensuring operation reliability and product quality in the design phase becomes tricky. In this paper, we aim at reliable design for robotics systems applied in production by investigating safety relations between the automation system and the manufacturing process. Functional modelling is a modern concept to translate the overall system goal into properties, based on which a function-centric procedure is proposed for identifying functional requirements specification on the robot-enabled production during the design phase. To apply the procedure in safety analysis, a form for function-centric hazard identification approach (F-CHIA) is presented based on the previous work, which provides a systematic way to conclude functional safety requirements. A specific case study on the pick-place task in the slaughterhouse using an autonomous manipulator is presented in this paper as an example, showing good applicability and reasonability of the proposed approach.