The assessment of rehabilitation robot safety is a vital aspect of the development process, which is often experienced as difficult. There are gaps in best practices and knowledge to ensure safe usage of rehabilitation robots. Currently, safety is commonly assessed by monitoring adverse events occurrence. The aim of this article is to explore how safety of rehabilitation robots can be assessed early in the development phase, before they are used with patients. We are suggesting a uniform approach for safety validation of robots closely interacting with humans, based on safety skills and validation protocols. Safety skills are an abstract representation of the ability of a robot to reduce a specific risk or deal with a specific hazard. They can be implemented in various ways, depending on the application requirements, which enables the use of a single safety skill across a wide range of applications and domains. Safety validation protocols have been developed that correspond to these skills and consider domain-specific conditions. This gives robot users and developers concise testing procedures to prove the mechanical safety of their robotic system, even when the applications are in domains with a lack of standards and best practices such as the healthcare domain. Based on knowledge about adverse events occurring in rehabilitation robot use, we identified multi-directional excessive forces on the soft tissue level and musculoskeletal level as most relevant hazards for rehabilitation robots and related them to four safety skills, providing a concrete starting point for safety assessment of rehabilitation robots. We further identified a number of gaps which need to be addressed in the future to pave the way for more comprehensive guidelines for rehabilitation robot safety assessments. Predominantly, besides new developments of safety by design features, there is a strong need for reliable measurement methods as well as acceptable limit values for human-robot interaction forces both on skin and joint level.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation (IFF) is intensively exploring possibilities for robots to engage in various service tasks, especiallyfirllyautomatic systems for facade cleaning. We have already designed and built a variety of different facade cleaning robots and concepts. These robots and concepts are based on various motion systems (i.e. walking mechanisms, wheeled vehicles, balloon-based systems, etc.) that are specially-suited for motion along dflerent building types. This paper gives an overview about different facade cleaning robots developed by the Fraunhofer IFF: The facade cleaning robot, SIRllJSc, for use on skyscrapers, the robot to clean the 25,000 mz vaulted glass hall of the Leipzig Trade Fair in Germany, as well as the completed concept for a balloon-based robot for cleaning the inner side of atriums and glass roofi are discussed here. The unique aspects of the main components of these robots will be addressed in particular

Human–robot collaboration is currently one of the frontiers of industrial robot implementation. In parallel, the use of robots and robotic devices is increasing in several fields, substituting humans in “4D”—dull, dirty, dangerous, and delicate—tasks, and such a trend is boosted by the recent need for social distancing. New challenges in safety assessment and verification arise, due to both the closer and closer human–robot interaction, common for the different application domains, and the broadening of user audience, which is now very diverse. The present paper discusses a cross-domain approach towards the definition of step-by-step validation procedures for collaborative robotic applications. To outline the context, the standardization framework is analyzed, especially from the perspective of safety testing and assessment. Afterwards, some testing procedures based on safety skills, developed within the framework of the European project COVR, are discussed and exemplary presented.

While collaborative robots have made headlines through recent industrial applications, they are not as widespread in industry as it may seem. The authors of this paper believe that one reason for this slow uptake is due to the high requirements on the safety and the lack of engineering tools for analyzing collaborative robotics applications. Systems engineering provides a good framework for creating the engineering tools needed for faster and more reliable deployment, but has only recently been applied to robotics challenges. In this paper, we discuss the state of the art for designing robotics applications featuring human-robot collaboration (HRC) and then review existing systems engineering approaches, which could offer support. Our review aims to support the robotics community in the future development of engineering tools to better understand, plan, and implement applications featuring collaborative robotics. CCS Concepts • Applied computing➝ Physical sciences and engineering ➝ Engineering➝ Computer-aided design.

Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation (IFF). SIRIUS is a climbing robot meant for any vertical surface, regardless of the angle. The robot can be outfitted with tools to perform a variety of service‐sector tasks such as façade cleaning, building and ship coating, ship welding, inspection work on tanks, and so on. It is a modular system, and the robot can be adapted to almost any surface, independent of the surface material or obstacles. The robot stays attached to the surface via suction cup feet or magnetic grippers, and moves vertically on four linear guides that are coupled in two pairs. The new kinematics of the robot allow it to walk continuously in all directions. The robot overcomes obstacles by sensing their position and generating the necessary step length in order to maximize the number of suction cups attached to the surface while walking over the obstacle.

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Industrial robots, that are designed to carry out operations fast, repeatedly and accurately, usually have been fixed to one physical location and manipulate objects on the assembly line. However, for several industrial applications, particularly for the applications involving large part manufacturing such as aerospace industry or shipbuilding industry, large parts are worked on in a stationary production cell. In such a production environment, specialized, stationary robotic systems are not economical and a mobile manipulator is desirable. In this paper, we present the systematic architecture designed for a mobile manipulator working together with human co-workers in an unstructured environment. We detail hardware specification of robot as well as software architectures under consideration of safety, efficiency and load balance issues of industrial robotics, in particular for the aerospace manufacturing industry. A configurable graphical user interface has also been presented to test and validate our system design. Two commonly existing exemplary tasks in aerospace manufacturing industry - sealant applying and visual inspection, have been discussed within this systematic architecture

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