Engineering360: "Amazon cloaks warehouse workers in protective vests to prevent robot collisions"

RUN FORREST RUUUUN!!

The anti-Romulan "cloak of VISIBILITY"?

This seems like not such a good idea. I fail to see how you could implement fail-safe, dark-on activation of such a safety system.

In other words, how do you configure such a system such that if it DOESN'T see what expects it defaults to an assumption of a danger condition?

Light curtains, safety mats, and other such devices can and should be hooked up such that an electrical circuit is closed when conditions are safe, opened when hazards are present. That way, if the sensor or connection fails, it looks like a hazard situation to the system.

With Amazon's vests, what happens if a sensor fails? Everything looks "safe" and a worker gets crushed?