An Approach for Dynamic Robot-Risk Assessment in Agile Manufacturing Process towards Industry 4.0

Abstract

In the Era of Industry 4.0, versatility and cost-efficiency play a significant role in modern-day production. Due to the increasing demand for customization, the multitude of product variants has risen dramatically. Therefore, industrial workplaces should adapt flexibly to even special customer requests. Consequently, flexible human-robot collaboration has become a crucial feature in modern production. Human safety is a key challenge in implementing an agile system due to heterogeneous safety requirements or guidelines. This paper introduces a novel wizard-guided tool for dynamic risk assessment (DRA) and risk mitigation of human-robot collaboration applications. The software aims to make risk assessment more accessible and flexible while following EU machinery directives. Additionally, this paper presents a multilayer operation mode approach coupled with a dynamic finite-state machine for a compact and efficient risk reduction. To evaluate the tool a usability study is performed. The usability is based on ISO 9241-11 standards for evaluation. A group of experts tested and evaluated the tool. Regarding the criteria for the usability of ISO 9241-11, overall high usability is given. Furthermore, the tool is designed to be able to integrate with another module to create a safety-related framework.