We are happy to announce that our CLAWAR Trustee and Deputy Chair Prof. Gurvinder S. Virk will deliver a talk about “Collaborative robot safety requirements for manufacturing” at the Next Generation Robotics & Automation Event, Europe 2016, 29-30 November 2016, Coventry, UK.

Title of the talk: Collaborative robot safety requirements for manufacturing

RISK ASSESSMENT – ISO Robot Safety Standards for Collaborative Manufacturing

Learn the latest ISO safety requirements for collaborating industrial robots and for emerging close human-robot interaction including human-robot contact

• Gain insights into the ISO 10218-1, -2 safety requirements as well as the recently published ISO TS 15055 for collaborative industrial robots and the work projects underway in the area of industrial robots
• Gain insights into how the general risk assessment and risk reduction principles in ISO 12100 have been used to develop ISO 13482 as new safety requirements for personal care robots. These are robots defined to improve quality of life of humans and applications include improving quality of life of workers in carrying out physically demanding tasks
• Understand how to define robots within new regulatory boundaries and the new corresponding safety requirements
• Learn how automotive manufacturers can cut through red tape to expedite the implementation of safety in all areas and focus on final product delivery

BioCV: Professor Gurvinder S. Virk (BSc, PhD, DIC, FIET, FCIBSE, CEng, CMath, FIMA, MIEEE). Prof Virk is Technical Director at InnotecUK Ltd. He has held Professor positions in robotics at University of Gävle, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. Massey University, New Zealand, University of Leeds and at Portsmouth, UK. He is also Trustee of the UK registered charity CLAWAR aimed at advancing robotics for the public benefit.

He is a technical expert in control theory and its applications with particular experience in service robotics and the use of advanced model-based control to a variety of applications. His current interests are in physical assistant exoskeletons for elderly persons (medical and non-medical applications). He has extensive experience of project management, leading international R&D and standardisation projects and he has held several grants from national and European sources (total value of over €20m), as well as industry. He has produced over 350 papers in these areas and 11 books, 16 PhDs successfully completed. Prof Virk is Convenor of three international robot standardisation work groups, namely:

• ISO TC299/ WG02: Personal care robot safety,
• IEC TC62/SC62A & ISO TC299 JWG9: Medical electrical equipment and systems using robotic technology (medical robots)
• ISO TC299/WG06: Modularity for service robots

In addition he is member of ISO TC299/WG3 Industrial robot safety. These groups are developing the important international safety standards for traditional and emerging robots. He is also Coordinator of the euRobotics Topic Group on Robot Standardisation which is providing the inputs for robot standardisation related issues into the EC Horizon 2020 Programme.