New robot safety standard draft released

The draft of the new ANSI RIA R15.06 Robot System Safety Standard was introduced at the 2011 National Robot Safety Conference in Knoxville, Tenn., last month. The new standard is an adoption of the ISO standards for robots and their system implementation (ISO 10218-1 and -2).

The draft ANSI RIA standard is being developed co-operatively with CSA, so that the final product will include the ISO, CSA and ANSI requirements, all in one package.

“The new draft adds user requirements to the ISO standards, as the ISO standards only address suppliers,” said Roberta Nelson Shea, director of safety consulting services for Applied Manufacturing Technologies. “It is exciting to see that robotics is expanding to industries outside the traditional automotive applications.”