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IEC 61496

• IEC 61496-1:2020 — General requirements. Type 2, Type 3, Type 4 classification. Response time, detection capability, robustness.
• IEC 61496-2:2020 — Particular requirements for active opto-electronic protective devices (light curtains).
• IEC 61496-3:2018 — Particular requirements for active opto-electronic protective devices responsive to diffuse reflection (area scanners).
• IEC 61496-4 — Particular requirements for vision-based protective devices.

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Types

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What Roboticks supports

• Clause-level derivation from IEC 61496-1 / -2 / -3.
• Integration-test patterns for ESPE devices — verifying end-to-end response time (sensor detection → cell stop) under nominal and fault conditions.
• Cross-derivation with the upstream safety-function standard (typically IEC 62061 or ISO 13849).
• Configuration management — ESPE devices have configuration (detection zones, response time, blanking). The platform’s release-scoped requirements snapshot pins the configuration in force at release time.

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What Roboticks does not do

• We do not certify the ESPE device itself. The device’s IEC 61496 certification comes from the device supplier and is validated by the supplier’s certification body. The Roboticks scope is the integration — the cell behaves correctly given the certified device.
• We do not generate detection-zone configurations. The geometry of the protective zone is a risk-assessment output, not a Roboticks deliverable.

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Example integration requirement

- id: REQ-LC-001
  title: Light curtain end-to-end response time within 300 ms
  type: safety
  asil_pl: PLd
  derives_from:
    - standard: iec-61496-1-2020
      clause: "§5.4.2 Response time"
      edition: "2020"
    - standard: iec-61496-2-2020
      clause: "§5.5 Detection capability"
      edition: "2020"
    - standard: iec-62061-2021
      clause: "§6.6 Safety function realisation"
      edition: "2021"
  text: |
    From interruption of any beam of the cell entry light curtain
    (Acme LC4-1200, Type 4, certified per IEC 61496-2:2020) to
    Category 1 stop of all cell motion, the end-to-end response
    time shall not exceed 300 ms (including the certified light
    curtain response time of 18 ms, network latency, safety PLC
    cycle, and drive STO assertion).
  acceptance:
    - test: tests/cell/test_lc_e2e.py::test_response_within_300ms
    - test: tests/cell/test_lc_e2e.py::test_response_under_finger_intrusion
    - test: tests/cell/test_lc_e2e.py::test_response_under_arm_intrusion

from roboticks import confirms, deadline

@confirms("REQ-LC-001")
@deadline(milliseconds=300)
def test_response_within_300ms(cell):
    cell.start_motion(velocity_mm_s=200)
    cell.simulate_beam_break("LC4-1200", beam_index=14)
    cell.wait_until_stopped()
    # the @deadline decorator records elapsed time as a JUnit property

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Suggested test patterns

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Pinning

rbtk standard pin iec-61496-1-2020 --project acme-robotics/firmware
rbtk standard pin iec-61496-2-2020 --project acme-robotics/firmware

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Next steps