Safety plays a key role when implementing collaborative robots (cobots) in human-shared workspace scenarios. Nevertheless, the significance and understanding of safety-related aspects may ...significantly vary with different stakeholders’ perspectives. In particular, there is often a misconception that cobots are inherently safe with the result of significantly underestimating the need of adopting adequate safety measures and features for the deployment of collaborative robots in industrial and non-industrial frames. Accordingly, this article develops an in-depth analysis of the stakeholders and their stakes in human–robot collaboration in the manufacturing industry with particular attention to the safety aspects. The proposed approach consists of a field study, with an online questionnaire and structured interviews, directed at the main stakeholders. The field study results are presented and compared with insights from two recent explorative studies. Finally, careful analysis and discussion is provided. This research focuses on three topics: (i) the specific phases in the collaborative robot application cycle, (ii) the stakeholders that are involved in each phase, and (iii) the stakes that affect the stakeholders in general, and specifically the role of safety within these stakes. The findings show that awareness of safety issues is still jeopardized between stakeholders. In addition, key stakeholders still significantly underestimate safety-related issues when implementing cobots in new production lines. This implies the need for objective assessment tools that can systematically address and assess all safety-related aspects. This study provides industry practitioners with a broader view of how different stakeholders regard safety-related aspects in the cobot life cycle. This will enable more informed decision-making when implementing cobot solutions and potentially avoid unconsidered safety risks later on. This article also adds to the scant research on the role of each stakeholder in human–robot collaboration.
Despite their undisputed potential, the uptake of collaborative robots remains below expectations. Collaborative robots (cobots) are used differently from conventional industrial robots. The current ...safety focus of collaborative workspaces is predominantly on the technological design; additional factors also need to be considered to cope with the emerging risks associated with complex systems. Cobot technologies are characterized by an inherent tradeoff between safety and efficiency. They introduce new, emergent risks to organizations and can create psychosocial impacts on workers. This leads to a confusing body of information and an apparent contradiction about cobot safety. Combined with a lack of safety knowledge, this impedes the introduction of cobots. A multi-step methodology was used, including a literature review and conceptual modeling. This article argues for the need for a system-wide safety awareness readiness assessment in the consideration phase of cobot implementation to alleviate the knowledge deficit and confusion. This work will benefit both researchers and practitioners. In addition, it defends the appropriateness of a maturity grid model for a readiness assessment tool. The building blocks for an easy-to-use and practically applicable tool are proposed, as well as an agenda for the next steps.
•Safety for collaborative robots is mainly considered from a technical perspective.•A system-wide perspective allows to consider other and new risk factors.•Risk Factors for Human-Robot Collaboration ...can be classified in five classes.
Industry 4.0 systems in general and advanced manufacturing systems such as collaborative robots, in particular, are characterized by a high level of complexity leading to new safety concerns. Safety, specifically for collaborative robots, has been mainly addressed from a technical perspective, to safeguard the physical safety of the operator. Concerns have been raised regarding less focus in Industry 4.0 literature on how other factors, such as psychosocial can produce safety-related risks for the operator in human-robot collaboration.
This paper identifies and classifies the risk factors in a human-robot collaboration that have been described in research papers in the last decade. The resulting five classes constitute dimensions that will be used as preliminary building blocks for a safety evaluation framework to be developed in the next step. By evaluating the resulting classes with the underlying dimensions of contemporary socio-technical thinking, this paper demonstrates that these five classes offer a comprehensive, system-wide perspective including risk factors beyond technological considerations.
Topics emerging from new risks related to the impact of working with collaborative robots, such as psychosocial, ethical, and cyber risk factors will need to be taken into account in the risk factors that are important to identify, assess and mitigate before working with collaborative robots. Operator involvement and participation, especially throughout the risk assessment and mitigation cycle are recommended as new areas of attention in human-robot collaboration.
Going forward, one challenge will be the agility and adaptability of legislation to at least keep track of risk factors emerging from continuously changing technologies and to translate them into practically applicable tools for enterprises and design engineers implementing collaborative applications. Another key challenge will be the measurement of the new emerging and sometimes less technological risks.
Collaborative robots (cobots) are important accelerators of industrial growth. Their potential is undisputed, yet cobot adoption remains low. Safety is one of the factors that influence cobot ...adoption. This paper examines safety in particular as an adoption factor and argues that the system-wide nature of safety for cobots results in a paradoxical tension. This tension leads to confusing and conflicting signals to practitioners contributing to the low adoption rate of cobots. Suggestions to lessen this tension and lower safety as a barrier for adoption are proposed. This paper helps to better understand the comprehensive role of safety in collaborative robotics.
This paper sets up a framework to assess co-agency in human-robot interactions, and applies it specifically to the socio-technical safety analysis of collaborative robots. We also examine to what ...extent the concept of Situation Awareness can be applied to assess collaborative robots as efficient team members in socio-technical systems. We explain some theoretical concerns with traditional concepts of Situation Awareness and defend why the concept of Joint Cognitive Systems, which maps the conceptualization of the cognitive system onto the work system as a whole, is best suited for issues of distributed cognition and controllability in human-robot interaction. Thereafter we present a five-step methodology specifically conceived for cobot applications serving the aim of goal coordination between multiple agents by functional interactions. The proposed framework merges two existing safety and resilience analysis methods, being the Functional Resonance Analysis Method and Interdependence Analysis. These methods are used in combination to assess shared control in safe and efficient human-robot interaction from a systems-thinking perspective. This allows to describe the systemic conditions for Distributed Situation Awareness in terms of observable system interactions and as an emergent object of distributed cognition. Instead of looking at undesirable safety outcomes, we have imposed the focus of co-agency as the unit of analysis in line with the Joint Cognitive Systems perspective. The theoretical insights from this paper are additionally applied to a hypothetical but credible demonstration case study with collaborative warehouse robots.
•A socio-technical modelling framework for co-agency in human-robot interactions is presented.•Functional Resonance Analysis Method and Interdependency Analysis are combined into a new framework.•Interdependency is the central organizing principle to design principles that can support humans and robots engaged in joint activity.•The principles of Observability, Directability and Predictability are applied as the essential elements of multi-agent goal coordination.
Collaborative robots are an emerging technology falling within the scope of Industry 4.0 and based on the concept of Human‐Robot Collaboration (HRC). Unlike traditional industrial robots, ...collaborative robots are used in shared workspaces with no safety fences. Hence, prospective hazardous contacts need to be avoided or mitigated through a risk assessment. The normative standards such as ISO TS 15066 suggest a list of common hazards, but do not guide the robot system user through the risk assessment process. To address this shortcoming, this paper proposes a practical eight steps risk assessment approach, resulting in a risk priority list. In order to provide an accurate, practical, quantitative and supportive tool for HRC environments, the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and the Proportional Risk Assessment technique (PRAT) techniques are proposed for risk assessment. The two techniques mentioned above are combined in the suggested new methodology, highlighting both their benefits and disadvantages. The proposed methodology is applied with positive results to a collaborative brick‐lifter case study.
Deficiency in X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein (XIAP) is the cause for X-linked lymphoproliferative syndrome 2 (XLP2). About one-third of these patients suffer from severe and ...therapy-refractory inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but the exact cause of this pathogenesis remains undefined. Here, we used XIAP-deficient mice to characterize the mechanisms underlying intestinal inflammation. In
mice, we observed spontaneous terminal ileitis and microbial dysbiosis characterized by a reduction of
species. We showed that in inflamed mice, both TNF receptor 1 and 2 (TNFR1/2) cooperated in promoting ileitis by targeting TLR5-expressing Paneth cells (PCs) or dendritic cells (DCs). Using intestinal organoids and in vivo modeling, we demonstrated that TLR5 signaling triggered TNF production, which induced PC dysfunction mediated by TNFR1. TNFR2 acted upon lamina propria immune cells. scRNA-seq identified a DC population expressing TLR5, in which
expression was also elevated. Thus, the combined activity of TLR5 and TNFR2 signaling may be responsible for DC loss in lamina propria of
mice. Consequently, both
and
mice were rescued from dysbiosis and intestinal inflammation. Furthermore, RNA-seq of ileal crypts revealed that in inflamed
mice, TLR5 signaling was abrogated, linking aberrant TNF responses with the development of a dysbiosis. Evidence for TNFR2 signaling driving intestinal inflammation was detected in XLP2 patient samples. Together, these data point toward a key role of XIAP in mediating resilience of TLR5-expressing PCs and intestinal DCs, allowing them to maintain tissue integrity and microbiota homeostasis.
As oil reserves in established basins become depleted, exploration and production moves towards relatively unexploited areas, such as deep waters off the continental shelf. The Faroe-Shetland Channel ...(FSC, NE Atlantic) and adjacent areas have been subject to increased focus by the oil industry. In addition to extreme depths, metocean conditions in this region characterise an environment with high waves and strong winds, strong currents, complex circulation patterns, sharp density gradients, and large small- and mesoscale variability. These conditions pose operational challenges to oil spill response and question the suitability of current oil spill modelling frameworks (oil spill models and their forcing data) to adequately simulate the behaviour of a potential oil spill in the area. This article reviews the state of knowledge relevant to deepwater oil spill modelling for the FSC area and identifies knowledge gaps and research priorities. Our analysis should be relevant to other areas of complex oceanography.
•Oil exploration and production is moving increasingly to deeper waters.•The Faroe-Shetland Channel (FSC) is a complex area in terms of metocean conditions.•Such complexity is a challenge for deepwater oil spill modelling.•We review the state of knowledge relevant to such modelling in the FSC.
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