Laying down the rules for safer wearable robots
Robotic exoskeletons that support the lower limbs promise to change the lives of people who cannot move on their own. They also have the potential to make physical work safer in industrial settings. However, as important as they are, these emerging technologies raise a number of legal, ethical and social concerns. Can such exoskeletons truly protect employee health? Will the cost of wearable robots make them inaccessible to most people? Will focusing on restoring people’s ability to walk lead to those who cannot walk being disregarded? And if using a robot results in harm or injury, who will be liable, the robot or the human controlling it? Currently, rules and regulations on personal care robots are filled with gaps and inconsistencies, making it difficult to tackle these issues. Focusing on ISO 13482:2014, the most comprehensive international standard specifying safety requirements for personal care robots, researchers supported by the EU-funded SAFEandSOUND and EUROBENCH projects investigated how such a standard addresses social and ethical issues. Their study explores the key aspects of safety and responsibility relating to robotic lower-limb exoskeletons used in everyday activities.
An unclear regulatory landscape
The study authors report that “even though ISO 13482:2014 has proved to be a significant step towards regulating wearable robots, it fails to reflect the ethical and social issues that robots present sufficiently. In this respect, developers often find themselves with unclear regulatory guidance that, most of the time, makes them fall short of integrating policy goals entirely.” The study offers concrete recommendations to help decision-makers address these shortcomings. Findings from the research show that ISO 13482:2014 does not “address safety sufficiently and comprehensively.” They also suggest it needs to be improved in a number of areas, including its scope, how hazards are defined, and the impact of gender and psychological considerations on safety. The study also points out how the fact that the standard encompasses a diverse range of robots “creates confusion about the adequate level of safeguards needed to ensure the safety of the robot’s operation.” It goes on to explain that the different types and uses of robots make it difficult for policymakers to create frameworks that set clear boundaries for different types of robot. “As a result, robots may end up harming users in very unexpected ways.” Incomplete standard guidance prevents developers from building safe robots. The study suggests “that a standard for each robot category enhancing safety and usability universally across more equal robot devices (e.g. among physical assistant robots or social robots only) would perhaps frame the related safety issues more evenly.” The key message of the study supported by SAFEandSOUND (Towards Evidence-based Policies for Safe and Sound Robots: Harnessing experimentation to optimize the regulatory framing of healthcare robot technologies) and EUROBENCH (EUropean ROBotic framework for bipedal locomotion bENCHmarking) is that responsibility should be shared by all stakeholders within the personal care robot system. Each stakeholder should contribute their particular expertise to enhance the safety and functionality of personal care robots. “It is time to learn from these lessons and improve ISO 13482:2014 … so we can make the standard fit for a world where activities like walking or going to a meeting will increasingly depend on the assistance of robots assembled to our bodies.” For more information, please see: SAFEandSOUND project website EUROBENCH project
Keywords
SAFEandSOUND, EUROBENCH, robot, personal care robot, exoskeleton, robotic, lower limb, ISO 13482:2014
