サービスロボットの安全性 : リスク低減に関する方法論の基礎的考察-ΔR(機械力学,計測,自動制御)

Abstract

Service robot is facing for the infancy stage as a new industry due to various needs of society such as limited production way for a wide variety of products, labor shortage accompanying the reduction in the younger age population in the coming aged society. Service robot is a machine equipped with potential harmful hazards to human being, but the conventional safety principles for industrial robot such as the principle of separating (safeguarding) or the principle of stopping often deteriorate the functionality of service robots. Therefore it is essential to create a new safety principle especially for service robot. Adequate safety sensors are not yet available on the market and thus the development of the inherent safety design are particularly required. In case of industrial robot educated workers are to operate the robot, but in case of service robot consumers including children and aged people come in touch with them, therefore the risk in the later case is usually higher because of much wider variety of operational conditions. It is crueial effective to clearly decide the "limitation of machine", e.g. target people, operating place and time etc. In this paper, the effective ways to reduce risk based on the limitation of machine and inherent safety design according to the relevant standards on safety of machinery are discussed and proposed a conception of ΔR, the stepwise reduction in risk, to reach adequate reduced risk (ARR).