# Sonair’s ADAR One Achieves Safety Certification, Paving the Way for 3D Acoustic Sensing in Robotics
Sonair today announced that its ADAR One sensor is now suitable for SIL2 and PL d applications and is certified to fulfill all requirements of the European Machinery Directive as an acoustic detection and ranging sensor for the safe detection of humans and objects.
ADAR One was assessed as a human protection sensor according to the demanding IEC 61496 standard for electrosensitive protection devices. The sensor also meets two foundational standards: IEC 61508, the functional safety standard for electronic safety systems in high-risk industrial environments, and ISO 13849, the universal standard for safety-related parts of control systems.
“It is hard to convey how extensive and all-encompassing a safety certification process is,” Knut Sandven, CEO of Sonair, told *The Robot Report*. “We paused all other development for a long stretch and literally spent nights, weekends, and holidays getting it done. We certified ADAR to Performance Level d under ISO 13849 and SIL2 under IEC 61508, with exida in Germany as the assessing body.”
## Safety Infrastructure Lags Behind AI Advancements
Recent advances in AI have created robots that are smarter and more capable. However, the accompanying safety infrastructure has struggled to keep pace. Traditional 2D laser scanners, which are widely used to define safety perimeters for many mobile robots, are unable to detect people and obstacles above or below a single plane.
“Navigation in 2D can be perfectly fine. A robot can localize, map, and plan a route from a horizontal scan. Safety in 2D is a different matter,” Sandven said. “A 2D safety scanner sees the world as a single horizontal slice, usually around leg height. It catches a person’s legs but misses anything that does not cross that one plane: a person leaning in toward the robot, an overhanging shelf, or something suspended from the ceiling. To account for that, integrators compensate with large safety margins and low speeds, which costs throughput.”
Designed for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and industrial automation, ADAR One delivers 180°×180° 3D spatial awareness, detecting people and obstacles at all heights, said the Oslo-based company.
“The point is not that 2D is useless. It is the current default for protecting people, and it does that job,” Sandven said. “But it is not the best tool for confirming that a person is clear of harm across the full working space of a robot.”
## The Rigorous Path to Certification
ADAR is rated SIL 2 (Safety Integrity Level 2) and PL d (Performance Level d) with a probability of dangerous failure (PFH) below 1.5 x 10^-7 per hour. ADAR has received an ECCE type-examination certificate from exida, a notified body under the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC.
“To reach PLd and SIL2, you have to prove that the probability of dangerous failure per hour is inside the required band, and demonstrate the diagnostic coverage and architecture to support it, which means the design has to detect its own faults and move to a safe state when it can no longer trust its own measurement,” Sandven said. “The part people underestimate is everything around the numbers or metrics: the development process evidence, the failure mode analysis, the documentation, and the validation testing the assessor reviews.”
“The hardware metric is necessary, but it is the systematic rigor across the whole lifecycle that actually earns the certificate,” he added. “The final documentation package for the assessors runs to many thousands of pages.”
## Sonair Breaks New Ground for Ultrasonic Sensors
Sonair claimed that ADAR One is the first ultrasonic sensor to comply with the international standards. The standards bodies had to make adjustments to their tests, which were created around optical sensors.
“This was one of the more interesting parts,” Sandven said. “The type standard for this class of protective sensor, IEC 61496, is written around opto-electronic devices like light curtains and laser scanners, so”
The small footprint of ADAR technology enables it to be embedded flush into virtually any robot form factor, including humanoids, according to Sonair. Robotics developers can deploy ADAR One in AMRs, AGVs, and cobot architectures without seeking special exemptions.
Sonair said ADAR One provides improved productivity, more uptime, fewer incidents, and greater trust.
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*This article is based on information from the original post: “Sonair’s ADAR One sensor achieves safety certification for robotics applications” published by The Robot Report.*# Sonair ADAR One 3D Ultrasonic Sensor Achieves Safety Certification
As robots move into environments shared with people, the need for reliable proximity detection continues to grow. Before any sensor can support a safety function, however, detection capability must be defined and demonstrated in a way that satisfies regulatory standards.
The challenge is that most existing safety standards for sensor-based detection were written with optical sensing in mind. Rather than adapting ultrasonic technology to fit within those existing frameworks, Sonair found a more flexible approach by leveraging a technology-neutral standard rather than forcing ultrasonic principles into optical test methodologies.
## Bridging the Gap Between Sound and Safety Standards
Traditional safety standards for sensor-based detection were developed around optical systems, defining detection capability in terms of physical test pieces of a given diameter that a device must reliably detect. These criteria, however, do not translate directly to ultrasonic technology.
As the company explained, what an ultrasonic sensor detects depends on the acoustic reflectivity and cross-section of an object, not its optical properties. This fundamental difference meant that detection capability tests had to be re-expressed in terms that are meaningful for sound rather than light.
To accomplish this, Sonair turned to the IEC 62998 standard, a more recent framework for safety-related sensors that was deliberately designed to be technology-agnostic. This standard was written to accommodate novel sensing modalities that did not exist when earlier standards were developed.
The approach involved less of a rewriting of standards and more of a mapping of new physics onto an existing safety framework, defining how detection capability could be proven acoustically, and documenting that reasoning so it could withstand formal assessment.
## First Rust-Based Safety-Certified Embedded System
In addition to achieving certification through innovative safety mapping, ADAR One also stands out as the first safety-certified embedded system built in Rust, a programming language specifically designed for performance, safety, and reliability.
## Applications and Target Users
Sonair confirmed that ADAR One has entered series production and is already being shipped on deployed industrial robots. The sensor is positioned to benefit a range of industries and applications, particularly in environments where optical sensors face limitations.
According to the company, the clearest current fit is for mobile robots operating in spaces shared with humans, including autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) in warehouses and manufacturing environments, as well as service robots. Ultrasonic sensing adds considerable value in conditions that degrade optical performance, such as environments with airborne dust, glare, or where glass surfaces or poor lighting interfere with cameras.
Another area seeing strong interest is industrial robot arms of all kinds, where removing the safety fence makes ultrasonic-based human detection especially valuable.
## Designed for Humanoid Integration
ADAR One also compensates for the disadvantages of vision-based systems in demanding environments, where fog, steam, and airborne particles can severely impair optical sensors.
Its compact form factor allows it to be embedded directly into a humanoid robot’s body shell without requiring significant structural redesign.
Humanoid robots present a particularly demanding use case, as they are tall and move in three dimensions while being expected to operate in close proximity to people. Reliable human detection around the machine becomes critical, and the sensor’s small transducer array means it can be integrated into the robot body itself, effectively invisible to outside observers.
Beyond obstacle avoidance, a humanoid working alongside people must distinguish humans from inanimate objects and behave differently accordingly. A certifiably safe, dedicated sensor provides thatreliability. Because it uses sound, it complements cameras by covering the kinds of situations where visual systems are impaired.
## ADAR One Is Now Available
ADAR One provides 3D proximity perception and is designed for autonomous robots and machine safety applications requiring compliance with SIL 2 and PL d. Sonair also offers an ADAR test kit for engineers evaluating 3D ultrasonic sensing for new or existing safety applications.
Looking ahead, the company plans to bring ADAR One into large-scale deployment, transitioning from certification and initial validation to volume production, helping partners scale up from testing and ensuring smooth integration into initial robot products.
Sonair intends this as a broader platform rather than a single product. Future versions aim to refine the form factor and reduce costs, enabling new applications. Following the adoption by emerging humanoid robots and dense human-robot collaboration environments, the company plans to listen closely to customer feedback to guide development.
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*Original article: “Sonair ADAR One 3D ultrasonic sensor is now safety-certified” — [The Robot Report](https://www.therobotreport.com/sonair-3d-ultrasonic-sensor-is-now-safety-certified/)*
