Open Issues in Agri-food Robot Standardization—the Red Meat Sector

Abstract

Ensuring the safety of equipment, operator and the environment during robotic operation is paramount. Robotic systems are appearing in more and more professional service applications, while mechanic and control system components are evolving fast themselves, the legislation and standards regarding these topics are lagging behind. In connection with the RoBUTCHER project - which is a pioneer research effort employing industrial robots for completely automated slaughtering - it was revealed that there are no particular standards regulating directly robotics applied to the agri-food application domain. More specifically, the meat industry and the red meat sector within has only seen hygienic standards regarding machinery, not considering human-robot collaboration or safe autonomous robot operation in the abattoirs. The purpose of this paper is to provide a general overview of the relevant standards (and similar guiding documents) that could be used as pathfinders during the development of inherently safe robotic systems. Exploring the standard and legislation landscape should offer some instrumental help regarding the foreseen certification process of meat processing robots and robot cells in the near future.