Developing advanced robotics applications is now facing the confidence issue for users, which is a main limitation for their deployment in real life. This confidence could be justified by the use of dependability techniques as it is done in other safety critical applications. However, due to specific robotic properties (such as continuous human-robot physical interaction or non deterministic deliberative layer), many techniques need to be adapted or revised. This paper reviews the main issues and research work in the field of dependable robots, making the link between the dependability and robotics concepts. It also presents main challenges for increasing robot dependability.

Abstract-Safety critical systems with decisional abilities, such as autonomous robots, are about to enter our everyday life. Nevertheless, confidence in their behavior is still limited, particularly regarding safety. Considering the variety of hazards that can affect these systems, many techniques might be used to increase their safety. Among them, active safety monitors are a means to maintain the system safety in spite of faults or adverse situations. The specification of the safety rules implemented in such devices is of crucial importance, but has been hardly explored so far. In this paper, we propose a complete framework for the generation of these safety rules based on the concept of safety margin. The approach starts from a hazard analysis, and uses formal verification techniques to automatically synthesize the safety rules. It has been successfully applied to an industrial use case, a mobile manipulator robot for co-working.