Safety assessment process for human-robot handling tasks

The needs for using robots to assist human workers in accomplishing heavy tasks in a variety of industries are increasing. Almost by default this implies sharing the work space between robots and human operators. As a consequence, safety issues must be carefully taken into account. We have implemented a pilot system based on a standard industrial robot (KUKA KR120 R2500) for interactive handling of heavy and/or large parts and loads. Here we report the safety analysis and risk assessment of such a system following the harmonized robot standards (ISO 10218-1 &-2), including Preliminary Hazard Analysis (PHA), Use Case Safety Analysis (UCSA) and analysis of system functions and communications.