Tackling robot-related injuries
Industrial robots are increasingly commonplace, but research on typical accidents and injuries has been sparse, hindering evidence-based safety strategies.
New research used Severe Injury Reports (SIRs) from the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to identify 77 robot-related accidents from 2015-2022. Of these, 54 involved stationary robots, resulting in 66 injuries, mainly finger amputations and fractures to the head and torso. Mobile robots caused 23 accidents, leading to 27 injuries, mainly fractures to the legs and feet.
A two-stage thematic analysis was performed using text data from the final narratives in the reports to discover patterns in tasks, precipitating mechanisms and contributing factors. Findings highlight the need for guards and collision avoidance systems that detect individual extremities. Researchers also found that post-contact strategies should focus on mitigating finger amputations and that more structured and detailed narratives in the SIRs are needed.