Leading manufacturer welcomes ISO specification on collaborative robot design

The International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) has published ISO/TS 15066 to help integrators of robotic cells conduct risk assessments when installing collaborative robots.

The technical specification — a supplementary document to support the ISO 10218 ‘Safety Requirements for Industrial Robots’ standard — has been welcomed by Universal Robots’ Global Compliance Officer, Lasse Kieffer, who was an active expert in the committee that developed ISO/TS 15066.

“When the last revision of the ISO 10218 standards came out back in 2011, they were focused on traditional industrial robots — collaborative robots were still a new technology and not addressed in detail. We are pleased that the industry with ISO/TS 15066 now has received additional published specifications to guide the implementation of cobots operating safely with humans,” said Kieffer.

ISO/TS 15066 describes the different collaborative concepts and details the requirements to achieve these. In addition to design and risk assessment requirements, it also presents a research study on pain thresholds vs robot speed, pressure and impact for specific body parts.

The CTO of Universal Robots, Esben Østergaard, said that ISO/TS 15066 represents the consensus reached between member countries on an emerging technology. Acknowledging that the world needs a conservative approach towards robot safety, he stated there is still ongoing research into safe human-robot interactions and how to define practical guidelines in order to unleash the full potential of collaborative robots.