Page 18 - Occupational Health & Safety, February 2018

MACHINE GUARDING
I, COBOT: The Rise of Industrial Robotics and the Need for Employee Safeguarding
In general, OSHA’s view on robot safety is that if the employer is meeting the requirements of ANSI/RIA R15.06, the manufacturer has no issues. BY CARRIE HALLE
Tech executive and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk recently took to Twitter calling for the regulation of robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI), saying their potential, if left to develop unchecked, threatens human exis- tence. Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM, and Micro- soft joined in with their own dire forecasts and have jointly set up the consortium “Partnership on AI to Benefit People and Society” to prevent a robotic future that looks not unlike the “Terminator” movie series. National media heightened panic by broadcasting a video released by a cybersecurity firm in which a hacked industrial robot suddenly begins laughing in an evil, maniacal way and uses a screwdriver to repeatedly stab a tomato. The video demonstrated how major security flaws make robots dangerous, if not deadly.
Is all this just media hyperbole, or are robots really that hazardous to our collective health? Are productivity-driven manufacturers unknowingly putting employees at risk by placing robots on the plant floor?
What kind of safeguarding is required? Should robots be regulated, as Elon Musk believes?
‘Dumb’ Machines vs. Cobots
Until now, the robots used in manufacturing have mostly been “dumb” robots—that is, room-sized, pro- grammed machinery engineered to perform repeti- tive tasks that are dirty, dangerous, or just plain dull. Typical applications would include welding, assembly, material handling, and packaging. Although these machines are very large and certainly have enough power to cause injuries, the instances of employees actually being injured by robots is relatively rare. In fact, during the past three decades, robots have ac- counted for only 33 workplace deaths and injuries in the United States, according to data from the Occu- pational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
So, you might ask, why the sudden uproar when there are already 1.6 million industrial robots in use worldwide? Most of the clamor behind calls for regu- lation stems from a new generation of robots called “cobots” (collaborative robots) that are revolutioniz- ing the way people work. Unlike standard industrial robots, which generally work in cages, cobots have much more autonomy and freedom to move on their own, featuring near “human” capabilities and traits such as sensing, dexterity, memory, and trainability.
The trouble is, in order for cobots to work produc- tively, they must escape from their cages and work side by side with people. This introduces the potential for far more injuries. In the past, most injuries or deaths happened when humans who were maintaining the robots made an error or violated the safety barriers, such as by entering a cage. Many safety experts fear that since the cage has been all but eliminated with cobots, employee injuries are certain to rise.
Because cobots work alongside people, their manufacturers have added basic safety protections in order to prevent accidents. For instance, some cobots feature sensors so that when a person is nearby, the cobot will slow down or stop whatever function it is performing. Others have a display screen that cues those who are nearby about what the cobot is focus- ing on and planning to do next. Are these an adequate substitute for proven safeguarding equipment? Only time will tell.
There is another, more perilous problem with robots in general: Robots are basically computers equipped with arms, legs, or wheels. As such, robots are susceptible to being hacked. But unlike with a desktop computer, when a robot is hacked it has the
16 Occupational Health & Safety | FEBRUARY 2018
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