Work health and safety risks and harms of cobots

Background

While industrial robots have been around for decades, only in recent years have we seen the rise of collaborative robots (cobots). Unlike conventional industrial robots, cobots are designed to be operated in a shared workspace with humans. Although these collaborative settings provide benefits such as the reduction of physically demanding tasks for humans, a new range of risks and harms needs to be considered when introducing cobots. While physical risks, such as hazardous collisions, have been extensively studied and were paramount in the development of cobots, less known forms of risk exist, such as cognitive risks, emotional stress or socio-economic risks. Therefore, this study sets out to identify and categorise cobot-specific work health and safety risks and harms.

Method

A systematic review of academic and grey literature was conducted to synthesise the state of risks and harms related to the use of collaborative robots in the workplace. Interviews with selected stakeholders were then undertaken to validate and complement the insights from the literature review.

Discussion

Our findings highlight a wide variety of risks and harms towards workers’ health and safety, which can be classified into three main categories: physical, psychological and ethical. Most risks are related to physical harm and comprise hazardous collisions, cybersecurity, lack of focus, loss of movement control, debris and pinch points. Yet with the increasing proliferation of cobots, more and more risks related to psychological and ethical harm are emerging. Psychological risks include mental strain, lack of trust and complicated interaction mechanisms; while ethical risks refer to social environment, social impact, social acceptance and data collection.

Our findings suggest that traditionally there has been a focus on physical risks related to the use of cobots, with little consideration for psychological and ethical risks. However, in recent years, the latter two categories have gained increasing interest, as the use of cobots impacts various dimensions of work health and safety. An increasing number of studies and projects, including this one, have adopted holistic approaches towards identifying and mitigating related risks and harms, considering the physical, psychological and ethical safety of cobot operators.

Additionally, barriers to safe cobot implementation include unclear definitional boundaries and use-cases between cobots and industrial robots as well as an inconsistent approach to risk assessments and testing new task applications, work settings, or end effectors.

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