Robot Safety in Industry 4.0

Robots are leaving their cages. With the acceleration of Industry 4.0, manufacturers are moving from fenced-in automation to collaborative and even humanoid systems - creating an entirely new concept of safety. This summary presents the key takeaways from a two-phase study:

• Results of a quantitative survey of 203 European automation experts
• Findings from 20 in-depth interviews with end users, system integrators and robot manufacturers

The most important results:

• Collaboration between humans and robots without safety fences is still challenging and requires effort in terms of safeguarding
• Automated and AI-supported options are desired in order to plan robot applications that are accessible to humans in advance and to be able to achieve them with less effort
• Mobile robots and humanoids that are to be operated without safety fences present new challenges.
• There are also gaps in tools and standards for these new technologies, which delays secure deployment

Use these insights to evaluate your current operations, prioritize investments and stay ahead of the next wave of collaborative robot regulations.