Interdependency Analysis for Collaborative Robot Applications Through FRAM Analysis

EasyChair Preprint no. 5883

Abstract

Although collaborative robots (cobot) applications are increasingly utilised to physically collaborate in realtime with human operators, current cobot safety mainly focuses on a techno-centric perspective in terms of physical separation and managing the net result of kinetic energy in the cobot system. Human Factors (HF) research or its subcategory Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) are largely absent in cobot safety. To complement the current techno-centric approach, this project introduces a socio-technical safety and resilience analysis perspective for human-robot interaction by applying systemic safety analysis methods, with a specific focus on observability, predictability, and directability (OPD) requirements for JCS in relation to cobot operations. For the purpose of this project, cobots are broadly defined by any robot system with the potential for foreseeable or intentional physical contact between robots and humans, not necessarily restricted to system operators. The project sets out a generic cobot safety framework that is based on a FRAM analysis of the work system to assess OPD requirements in JCS.

Keyphrases: Cobots, Collaborative Robots, FRAM, interdependency analysis, JCS

@Booklet{EasyChair:5883,
  author = {Arie Adriaensen and Liliane Pintelon and Riccardo Patriarca},
  title = {Interdependency Analysis for Collaborative Robot Applications Through FRAM Analysis},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 5883},

  year = {EasyChair, 2021}}