SR-1 vs Safety Laser Scanners

Yellow Keyence SZ-16V safety laser scanner designed for advanced object detection and area protection in industrial environments.

Legacy safety laser scanners work well in simple, predictable layouts. Many plants still rely on them because they’re familiar, widely accepted, and straightforward to commission. But modern cells rarely stay simple. You now run mixed traffic, shared work areas, frequent changeovers, and people who need access for quality checks, material handling, and maintenance.

Laser scanners protect a 2D plane. That design creates tradeoffs:

• You either restrict the workspace with large zones, or you accept gaps and nuisance stops.

• You tune zones to reduce stops, then lose protection where the real work happens.

• You redesign safety whenever the cell changes.

SR-1 takes a different approach. It uses redundant 3D sensing to model the active workspace and detect people in real time. Instead of managing safety like a flat boundary, you manage it like the actual environment. People, robots, and obstructions included.

When SR-1 fits better:

• Dynamic cells with frequent changes

• Multiple access points and mixed traffic

• Large cells where “one plane” coverage creates blind spots

• Scenarios where nuisance stops cost real throughput

When scanners still win:

• Very simple, fixed layouts with stable access patterns

• Tight budgets where you accept larger restricted areas

  
  

If you want higher uptime without compromising safety, you need a safety approach that matches how your cell actually behaves.

Request a demo and share your layout. We’ll show SR-1 running in a scenario similar to yours.