New Forms of Human Robot-Collaboration

The revised ISO 10218 standard will define collaborative robotics from an innovative and fresh perspective. A so-called collaborative application may include collaborative as well as non-collaborative tasks. Systems where the border between these two types of tasks is designed flexibly in dynamic mixed scenarios are expected to offer new potentials but challenges in implementation, especially in risk and safety valuation. This paper presents the opportunities and challenges to evaluate safety characteristics at the flexibly designed border between collaborative and non-collaborative tasks in industrial robot applications. The outcome is a safety concept for new forms of human-robot collaboration consisting of mixed collaborative and non-collaborative applications based on suitable safeguards that fulfill all the requirements for safe transitioning from one type of task to another.