This paper presents a review of published literature on robot reliability and safety. The literature is classified into three main categories: robot safety; robot reliability; and miscellaneous. Robot safety is further categorized into six classifications: general; accidents; human‐factors; safety standards; safety methods; and safety systems/technologies. The period covered by the review is from 1973 to 2001.

A robot has to be safe and reliable. An unreliable robot may become the cause of unsafe conditions, high maintenance costs, inconvenience, etc.Over the years, in general safety and reliability areas various assessment methods have been developed, e.g. failure mode and effects analysis, fault tree analysis, and Markovian analysis. In view of these, this paper presents an overview of the most suitable robot safety and reliability assessment techniques.

No abstract

No abstract

Points out the steadily growing role of computers in the industrial sector. Highlights some accidents involving robots and touches on safeguards which have been introduced. Presents reliability and availability analysis of a robot machine/system having a redundant safety system. Formulas for system reliability, steady state availability, and mean time to failure are developed. Selective plots of the resulting formulas are shown.