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Summary / Abstract
For further increased flexibility of high variant manufacturing, deployment of collaborative robots can be an economical
proposition. Of particular present relevance is collaborative small parts assembly in a mixed environment with human
workers and with robots operating according to the protective paradigm of power and force limiting. Safety legislation
requires that one prepare an assessment of the associated risks for every system of machinery deployed in production
facilities and for all relevant use cases it affords. Risk assessment for power-and-force-limited collaborative robots can
be challenging, since experience is scarce and suitable guidance has only recently been published in ISO/TS 15066. This
paper discusses how possible incidental contact events between the collaborative robot and human worker occurring in
the course of the power-and-force-limited application are to be scrutinized for compatibility with tolerance limits for
biomechanical loading.
Collaborative robots and collaborative applications, how- contact are a new step for which little experience exists.
ever, have new properties for which there is insufficient The procedure for using the guidance of ISO/TS 15066 [4]
guidance in the parts of ISO 10218 [2], [3]. To fill this gap, is shown in Figure 2 below.
the necessary additional information for designing safe col-
laborative applications has been compiled and included in
ISO/TS 15066 [4].
Since HRC applications can bring the human operator and
the collaborative robot quite close to one another, a proper
risk assessment conducted according to ISO 12100 [5] is
of utmost importance.
motion of parts of the robot manipulator can serve to miti- Use case Description, Frequency
gate the effects of transient impact by limiting the transfer
of kinetic energy to the contacted body region. UC1: Setup and x Specially trained personnel
programming x Rare
5 Example Application UC2: Normal x Simply trained personnel
production x Frequent
To illustrate this procedure for an example application, we
consider a model layout of a collaborative work cell with a UC3: Manual in- x Simply trained personnel
dual-arm robot operating either side-by-side or face-to- tervention x Infrequent
face with a human operator.
UC4: Foreseea- x Untrained personnel
ble misuse x Rare
5.1 Layout
We consider in our example an arrangement with one col- UC5: Mainte- x Specially trained personnel
laborative robot with two arm, such as the ABB YuMi, op- nance x Infrequent
erating according to power and force limiting in the pres-
ence of up to two operators. The shared assembly task is UC6: Cleaning x Untrained personnel
conducted with all three participants located at a common x Infrequent
work bench, as shown below in Figure 3. UC7: Disman- x Untrained personnel
tling x Rare
Table 2 Overview of use cases for example application
While the intended types of use of this system will not in-
clude regular physical contact between human and robot,
slight aberrations in these can be the cause of incidental
contact.
Figure 4 Illustration of possible contact situations
5.2 Use Cases
For a systematic approach, we begin by listing the antici- The characteristics of these contact situations are listed in
pated use cases for the system shown. The information to Table 3. It is for each of these contact situations that meas-
record includes the task to execute, the lifetime phase of urements on the actual application or proper computations
the machinery in which it takes place, the qualification are necessary to establish the actual effects on the exposed
level of the personnel involved, and the frequency of oc- human body region.
currence of the particular use case (see Table 2). Note that we are excluding potential contacts to other body
A review of these reveals that for use cases UC1 – UC5 regions, such as the head, in this discussion. Such other
there are both the hazard of quasi-static and of transient contact cases must be mitigated by separate and additional
contact with the hand or lower arm of the operator. Use measures, which are not discussed in this paper.
cases UC6 and UC7, however, take place with the robot In this paper, we are using simplified kinematics and mass
system powered down, so that no risk of contact with the distribution of a YuMi robot to estimate the quasi-static
moving robot exists. and the transient loading of the lower arm and of the hand
of the operator. The model of the transient contact used
follows the effective two-body collision model described the necessary safety functions at the required safety perfor-
in Annex A of ISO/TS 15066 [4]. mance level.
For the model application, the most important safety func-
Contact Parameters tion is the speed limit. Following the guidance in ISO
Case x effective mass, contact area, region 13849-1 [6], Annex A, we can determine the required
x contact type, contact force or speed safety performance level for this function. The analysis is
CON1 x 3.9 kg, 2 cm2 , lower arm presented in Table 5.
x Quasi-static, 59 N
CON2 x 3.9 kg, 2 cm2 , lower arm Use Unpro- Severity Expo- Avoid-
x Transient, 790 mm/s case tected of haz- sure to ance of
CON3 x 2.5 kg, 1 cm2 , hand risk ard (S) hazard hazard
x Quasi-static, 21 N (F) (P)
CON4 x 2.5 kg, 1 cm2 , hand
UC1, Too S1 Æ High P2 Æ
x Transient, 1500 mm/s
UC5 high S0 F2 P1
Table 3 Overview of characteristics of contact situations
UC2 Too S1 Æ F2 Æ Difficult
Carrying out the estimates leads to the following results for high S0 F1 P2
the contact situations in use cases UC1 – UC5.
UC3 Too S1 Æ High P2 Æ
Con- Limit Values Calculated Effects high S0 F2 P1
tact x Force
Case x Pressure UC4 Too S1 Æ F2 Æ Difficult
x Energy Den- high S0 F1 P2
sity
UC6, Ac- None n.a. n.a.
CON1 x 160 N x 59 N UC7 ceptable
x 180 N/cm2 x 29.5 N/cm2
CON2 x 1.3 J/cm2 x 0.13 J/cm2 Table 5 Overview of required safety performance of speed lim-
CON3 x 140 N x 21 N iting function
x 190 N/cm2 x 21 N/cm2
CON4 x 0.49 J/cm2 x 0.80 J/cm2 Note that we assume the application as such, i.e. tooling
Table 4 Overview of calculated effects of contact situations and work pieces, do not include sharp geometrical surfaces
that would increase the severity of potential contact events
We note that for CON4, we exceed the allowed limit for to “S2” in the sense of ISO 13849-1. Also, the symbol
energy transfer density. “S0” is used to indicate “no injury”.
The reduction of S1 Æ S0 is achieved by a safety-related
5.4 Risks and Risk Reduction speed limit to ensure that the effects of transient contact are
mitigated sufficiently. The capability of personnel to avoid
For quasi-static contact events, the risk reduction measures
a potential contact hazard can be improved from P2 Æ P1
can be limiting the torques in the robots joints and the re-
by training, where appropriate due to frequent exposure to
sulting force exerted by the manipulator. In our example
the machinery.
we find that no additional reduction of the forces and pres-
The safety performance of the speed limit is given by trac-
sures in the quasi-static contact situations is necessary.
ing through the tree in Fig. A.1 of ISO 13849-1. We find
Transient events can best be managed by reducing the ro-
that:
bot speed appropriately. As determined above, the transi-
x S1 / F2 / P1 Æ PL b for UC1, UC3, UC5
ent contact to the hand in situation CON4 exceeds the limit
x S1 / F2 / P2 Æ PL c for UC2, UC4
for this body region and requires risk reduction. It is found
Since we know that the occurrence of a speed fault in the
that a speed reduction of the robot TCP from 1500 mm/s to
servo control of the robot controller is very unlikely, we
1150 mm/s in this use case will bring the energy deposition
can lower the safety performance level of the safety func-
density from 0.80 J/cm2 down to 0.47 J/cm2, which satisfies
tion by one level to PL b, in accord with ISO 13849-1,
the limit value of 0.49 J/cm2 for transient contacts to the
clause A.2.3.
hand.
As a result of this assessment, we conclude that the speed
limiting safety function must have a performance level of
5.5 Safety Function PL b.
Following ISO 13849-1:2015 [6], the consideration of the For this example application, then, we have gone through
severity of the original hazard and the characteristics of the the contact risks and have determined the correct mitiga-
relevant use cases are relevant to determine the necessary tion steps to achieve a safe PFL collaborative application.
safety performance of the safety functions used. For a ro-
bot to be suitable for the application intended, it must offer
7 References
[1] J. Krüger, T. K. Lien, and A. Verl, “Cooperation of
human and machines in assembly lines,” In: CIRP An-
nals of Manufacturing Technology. 58 (2009), No. 2,
p. 628-646.
[2] ISO 10218-1:2011, “Robots and robotic devices –
Safety requirements for industrial robots – Part 1: Ro-
bots”, ISO, Geneva (2011).
[3] ISO 10218-2:2011, “Robots and robotic devices –
Safety requirements for industrial robots – Part 2: Ro-
bot systems and integration”, ISO, Geneva (2011).
[4] ISO/TS 15066:2016, “Robots and robotic devices –
Collaborative robots”, ISO, Geneva (2016).
[5] ISO 12100:2010, “Safety of machinery – General
principles for design – Risk assessment and risk reduc-
tion”, ISO, Geneva (2010).
[6] ISO 13849-1:2015, “Safety of machinery – Safety-re-
lated parts of control systems – Part 1: General princi-
ples for design”, ISO, Geneva (2015).