Safe performance of automated mobile work machines

In the future scenario, workers, manually driven machines and automated mobile work machines will operate at the same time in large worksites. Automation in mobile work machines is increasing and this causes also the question about liability. The responsibility of manufactures is increasing as there will be more automated functions. There is also a growing need to new safety measures and functions. In many applications safety is the limiting factor against increase of automation. Currently, the mobile work machines are usually stopped, if safety is endangered. Stopping is not always optimal solution since, for example, in a crossings or end of a mine the machine must be driven away even if there is a failure in the machine. In order to optimize the performance of stopping the risks related to work place need to be defined. In this paper it is discussed what kind of information can be utilized and how the automated mobile work machine should perform in order to maintain adequate safety. The focus is on the situations where an automated mobile work machine is moving towards a person in a work site.