Terms
Six terms, kept short. They describe how industrial safety documents talk about shared space. They are not a substitute for the standards themselves.
A cell where people and a powered robot share space without a physical cage. The fence comes off only after a risk assessment shows that safety functions hold the risk down. Fenceless is not itself a certificate, and a photo of an open cell is not one either.
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Short for collaborative robot. In industry it usually means an arm built so an application can use the collaborative methods in ISO 10218 and ISO/TS 15066. The arm can be capable of collaboration and the installed cell can still need a fence if the tool, the part, or the task is hazardous.
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The international safety pair for industrial robots. Part 1 covers the robot as a machine. Part 2 covers the integrated application and cell, including commissioning and use. The current editions were published in 2025 and replace the 2011 editions.
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A 2016 ISO technical specification for collaborative industrial robot systems and the shared workspace. It adds four methods on top of ISO 10218: safety-rated monitored stop, hand guiding, speed and separation monitoring, and power and force limiting. It does not cover non-industrial robots.
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A collaborative method in which the robot keeps a protective distance from a person and slows or stops as that person gets closer. Separation is watched with safety-rated scanners or other presence sensors. ISO/TS 15066 gives guidance on speeds and minimum distances.
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A collaborative method in which the robot's design or control caps the force and energy of a contact. ISO/TS 15066 includes pain-onset data that integrators use as a conservative check. The limit has to cover the gripper, the workpiece, and the fixtures, not just the bare arm.
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