Module 18 · Phase 5: Deployment engineering
Robotics Safety, Reliability & Failure Handling
Detect failures, reach a safe state and prove it. Separates ordinary operational safeguards from safety-rated functions; software alone does not make a robot functionally safe.
This overview is open. 5 of 5 guides are written; the others show Coming soon until they are complete and tested.
Questions this module answers
- What should happen if LiDAR stops publishing, localization becomes invalid or communication is lost?
- How do I implement watchdogs and detect a failing IMU?
- How should the robot enter a safe state?
- How do I validate emergency-stop behavior?
What it covers
- Sensor and localization failure detection
- Watchdogs, e-stops, safe stopping
- Communication, power, thermal failure
- Redundancy, fault isolation, health monitoring
- Risk assessment and safety validation
Guides and design decisions
A. Engineering Guides (4)
B. Design & Selection (1)
Diagnostics, tools and challenges
C. Troubleshooting (2)
- Sensor data drops intermittentlyA topic stalls or loses messages at irregular intervals.
- IMU orientation driftsRoll, pitch or yaw creeps while the robot is stationary.
E. Design challenges (2)
- Challenge 1: Design an Autonomous Mobile RobotIndoor differential-drive robot: sensors, motor sizing, compute, power, ROS 2, LiDAR+IMU, SLAM, Nav2, tuning and validation.
- Challenge 6: Multi-Robot Fleet DeploymentFleet of mobile robots: architecture, networking, fleet management, task allocation, traffic, monitoring and recovery.
Practical deliverables
- Failure-response table
- Risk-assessment template
- E-stop validation procedure
Read first: existing FixTheRobot lessons and labs
This module builds on these instead of repeating them.
- Safety Filters: Control Barrier Functions for Navigation Navigation · Lesson
- Engineering Trade-offs and Safety Cases Navigation · Lesson
- Safe Deployment and Monitoring Robot Learning · Lesson
- Build a CBF Safety Filter Labs · Lab