The need for collaboration with robots on human tasks is evident in all sectors of the European market. Collaboration always raises safety issues, and European legislation is very careful to promote the protection of workers, elderly and weak subjects as a top priority. The need for “certification”, i.e. the compliance with mandatory requirements of Safety and Health, are in fact perceived as a pressing need by market operators (manufacturers, end users, etc.).
Safety regulations will be a barrier to cobot deployment unless they are easy to access, understand and apply. COVR collates existing safety regulations relating to cobots in e.g. manufacturing and fills in regulatory gaps for newer cobot fields as rehabilitation to present detailed safety assessment instructions to coboteers. Making the safety assessment process clearer allows cobots to be used with more confidence in more situations, increasing the variety of cobots on the market and the variety of services cobots can offer to the general population.
COVR provides a one-stop shop which uses a common approach to safety assessment and is valid across all fields and applications. COVR will provide clear and simple online access to best-practice safety testing protocols via a user-friendly decision tree, guided by questions about the cobot and its intended behaviors. Resulting application-specific testing protocols specify how to assess safety and document compliance with regulations. We support coboteers by providing safety-relevant services based in well-equipped facilities at each partner site. COVR services cover all stages of cobot development from design through final system sign-off to safety in use and maintenance, provided through consultancy, risk analysis, actual testing, workshops, courses, demonstrations, etc. – all designed to inspire people to increase cobot safety. All COVR elements will be beta-tested by external cobot developers etc. financed by FSTP. By using project elements “live”, these FSTP beneficiaries not only develop their cobots further towards market, but also contribute their knowledge to the COVR system and provide valuable feedback to both partners and standards developers.
