Technical Knowledge Hub

Technical Resources for Machine Safety & Industrial Sensing

Main Topics
  • Machine Safety & Standards
  • Safety Light Curtains
  • Safety Laser Scanners
  • Safety Relays & Control
  • Industrial 2D LiDAR
  • Applications & Automation

Explore the Knowledge Library by Engineering Topic

Technical resources are organised around the engineering problem being solved rather than around individual product names.

01 Functional Safety

Machine Safety & Standards

Guidance on machinery risk reduction, Performance Level, safety-related control systems and the standards used to design, position and validate protective measures.

  • ISO 13849
  • ISO 13855
  • ISO 13850
  • IEC 62061
  • Risk Assessment
  • Machine Guarding
02 Protective Devices

Safety Light Curtains

Articles covering Type selection, resolution, protection height, safety distance, blanking, control integration and practical machine-guarding applications.

  • Type 2 vs Type 4
  • Resolution
  • Protection Height
  • Safety Distance
  • Blanking
  • Integration
03 Area Safeguarding

Safety Laser Scanners

Technical guidance for configurable protective fields, area safeguarding, AGV and AMR safety, access protection and scanner integration.

  • Protective Fields
  • AGV / AMR
  • Area Guarding
  • Warning Fields
  • Scanner Selection
04 Safety Control

Safety Relays & Control Architecture

Understand how safety relays, programmable safety controllers, reset circuits, monitoring functions and safety-related outputs fit into the complete control-system safety function.

  • Safety Relay vs PLC
  • Reset
  • EDM
  • PL / SIL
  • Control Architecture
05 Industrial Sensing

Industrial 2D LiDAR

Practical resources covering industrial 2D LiDAR principles, switching outputs, raw scan data, navigation, positioning and interactive sensing applications.

  • 2D LiDAR
  • Raw Data
  • Ethernet / UDP
  • AGV Navigation
  • Positioning
  • Interactive Sensing
06 Applications

Applications & Industrial Automation

Application-focused guidance for robot cells, presses, packaging machinery, material handling, AGVs, overhead cranes and other automated equipment.

  • Robot Cells
  • Press Machines
  • Packaging
  • Material Handling
  • AGV / AMR
  • Overhead Cranes

Latest Technical Articles

Recently published and updated articles on machine safety, protective devices, functional safety, industrial sensing and automation applications.

Core Machinery Safety Standards in the Resource Library

Many machine-safety decisions depend on several standards working together. These are some of the principal standards referenced throughout the technical library.

01
Safety-Related Control Systems

ISO 13849-1

Covers the design and evaluation of safety-related parts of machine control systems, including Performance Level, required PL, Category, MTTFd, diagnostic coverage, common-cause failure and related reliability concepts.

Read the ISO 13849 Performance Level guide →
02
Safeguard Positioning

ISO 13855

Provides principles for positioning safeguards with respect to the approach of the human body, including safety-distance considerations used when locating electro-sensitive protective equipment around hazardous machinery.

03
Electro-Sensitive Protective Equipment

IEC 61496

Defines requirements for electro-sensitive protective equipment used for machinery safeguarding and provides the framework for device Type classifications and technology-specific requirements.

04
Functional Safety of Machinery

IEC 62061

Addresses the functional safety of safety-related control systems for machinery and uses Safety Integrity Level concepts for the design and evaluation of safety functions.

05
Emergency Stop

ISO 13850

Specifies functional principles for emergency-stop functions on machinery, including their purpose, operating principles and relationship with other protective measures.

Practical Tools for Selection and Machine-Safety Calculations

Use these focused engineering tools to support early-stage safeguard positioning and safety light curtain model selection.

01
Machine Safety Calculation

ISO 13855 Safety Distance Calculator

Calculate a preliminary minimum safety distance for electro-sensitive protective equipment using the ISO 13855:2024 approach and relevant application inputs.

  • ISO 13855:2024
  • Safety Distance
  • Protective Devices
  • Machine Safeguarding
02
Product Selection

ENT Safety Light Curtain Model Selector

Narrow the ENT safety light curtain range by resolution, operating distance and protection height to identify suitable standard model configurations for further review.

  • Resolution
  • Operating Distance
  • Protection Height
  • ENT Series