ABSTRACT
Each year a vast sum of money is being spent worldwide to design, develop, and operate robots, software, and medical devices. Their safety has become an important issue.
The word “robot” is derived from the Czech language, in which it means “worker.” Today, there are over one million robots in use worldwide. The awareness of robot safety appears to have its beginning in the 1970s [1]. In the 1980s, three important documents concerning robot safety appeared: a technical guidance document [2], a book (edited) [3], and a standard [4]. In the 1990s, a book entitled “Robot Reliability and Safety” discussed the subject of robot safety in considerable depth [1]. A comprehensive list of publications on robot safety is given in Ref. [5].
