Volunteers get hit by robots to address workplace safety concerns.
Science fiction writers have long contemplated the potential future of man-killing robots that threaten to take over the world. But in factories worldwide, real-life robots present serious and even life-threatening risks to their human co-workers.
Making the workplace safer for robots working alongside people is the goal of researchers at the Fraunhofer IFF Institute in Magdeburg, Germany, according to Bloomberg. One way they do this is to test human volunteers for their ability to take an unexpected blow from a nearby robot.
The way they test this is simple: they immobilize their human subjects, tying them and blindfolding them, with earplugs to make sure they don’t hear the blow coming. Then the volunteers are subjected to robotic punches to assess the human’s response.
Roland Behrens, a scientist working at the German lab, is seeking to understand how much “cobots,” robots that collaborate with human co-workers, can impact humans without causing damage. Programming that helps machines avoid contact is obviously preferred, but Behren’s research seeks to plan for the inevitable accidents.
The testing uses a machine that simulates a robotic limb. The robot arm hits the volunteer on the hand, shoulder, lower and upper arm, using the lowest velocity and highest mass. Pain is measured on a one to 10 scale, with tests stopped if a subject suffers pain of five or above. The subject’s skin is then scanned for bruises or swelling.
Last year German industries saw 158 accidents between robots and humans, the highest rate in five years, according to a German workplace insurance broker. The International Federation of Robotics says that more robots were sold for industrial use last year than ever before. This year, a worker at a VW plant was killed when a robot crushed the man against a metal plate.
Germany is Europe’s largest economy and many of its state-of-the-art factories rely on robotic workers. The need for robots is growing in the country, where demographic shifts mean that the population of working adults is expected to shrink to 34 million by 2050, down from the current 50 million.
