Since 1990, safety mats have faced increased competition from safety laser scanners. Because the price for safety laser scanners is continuously decreasing, manufacturers might face a decision of whether or not to replace a safety mat with a safety laser scanner. This paper aims to explain the functions and advantages of safety laser scanners over safety mats.
The main advantages are the highly reduced replacement costs through the non-contact functionality and the principle of the configuration memory in the system plug of the scanner. Moreover, the safety laser scanner can be easily adjusted to the machine design thanks to the configurable fields. Further advantages are the warning fields, which reduce the machine downtime significantly by warning an approaching person before the machine needs to be stopped for reasons of safety. Besides these advantages, the limitations of the scanner technology are also explained.
