HaloSleeve: Redefining Energetics Safety for Robots

The United States Cold War era energetics infrastructure is aging. A gap exists between modern, computerized manufacturing equipment and approved equipment for explosive environments. Due to consolidation of the defense industrial base, there has been limited progress in developing advanced electrical machinery for explosive environments. This is particularly true in regards to the rapidly growing capabilities of collaborative robotic arms (cobots). This technology has served as manufacturing force multiplier across numerous industries, but thus far has seen limited to no implementation in energetics. A driving reason for this is that nearly all commercial cobots fail to meet the standard for operation within a Class 1 / Division 1 environment, where flammable atmospheres can exist during everyday operation. Nou-Systems, Inc (nSI) and Boulder Engineering Studio (BES) seek to change this reality by developing a modular attachment for a multitude of arms to allow their additional utility to be rapidly brought to energetic production lines around the county. By doing this, we will provide both a device to certify individual arms as well as a path to certification for other arms and future cobots which may be needed as current technology ages. We call this ground breaking device HaloSleeve.