I concur that the view is "interesting". And making it interesting is the job of academia and the purpose of a science-fiction writer. But we are the people, after all the glamour and hype, that are left to make it practical.
In addition to the previously mentioned risk standard, look at the stuff here http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/robotics/standards.html And yes, I know that these stds/regs are for the industrial user. But this is where you start. As for the Asimov laws - I remember a bizarre series of PDEs from a school lecture that were intended to emulate the break points for the 'progression' through each law. It was never explained where the data would come from or how the data would be qualified. So we had a very interesting mathematical model for robot safety without any way to populate with data. The problems with robot software safety is that there is no 'safe' data model for this world, that there is no OS that has successfully implemented hardware-controlled memory management; that there is no OS that is capable of both process isolation and deconstruction of a single or of multiple processes into safe parallel threads, and that there is no OS that can run a process more complex than a single-variable loop that is deterministic. In short, P versus NP. Last year, I wrote some lectures for a short high school course on programmable motion. I found some safety notes from a university web-site (lost the reference), and derived the following main points of safety. 1. Areas of danger 2. Rate of motion 3. Human-prediction of motion For industrial equipment, the danger zone is more likely to be well-defined, and because motion is typically repetitive, the motion is predictable by humans for a given temporal reference. But for truly useful 'home' robotics, these three robotic safety principles would require the bulk of the processing overhead. Ultimately, there will be no autonomous mobile system for home use, any more advanced than the Roomba, that can have any deterministic software safety until we have singularity. So we are left with the mechanical interlock. Brian > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf > Of Ronald R. > Wellman > Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2010 8:56 PM > To: [email protected]; [email protected] > Subject: RE: Robotics Operational Safety Standarads > > Hello Robert, > > You present an interesting view of how to look at robotic > systems that > really needs open discussion. From my experience, you are > better to look at > risk levels and determine what is tolerable and what is not. > ISO 14971 is > one possible reference for risk assessment but there are > other standards you > can apply. > > Best regards, > Ron Wellman, NCE, RAC > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf > Of [email protected] > Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2010 11:43 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Robotics Operational Safety Standarads > > Ladies, Gentlemen, > > Safety from mobile robots operating within a non-technical > group of users > are/will be of concern to agencies, companies, and > individuals involved in > this industry. I've been tasked with seeking information > about such Safety > Standards - find standards, contact organizations/individuals, etc. > > I know there exists a plethora of related industrial robotic > standards, > but those standards seem like Class A versus Class B. Does > anyone know of, > or is anyone pursuing, any "Class B" standards? > > Who at IEEE is responsible for these standards and would > actively take > part in creating/extending operational safety standards? > > Who within any country? > > Feel free to reply 'off line' > > Regards, > Robert Macy, PE > > AJM Electronics > 101 E San Fernando St., Ste 402 > San Jose, CA 95112 > tel: 408 982 7574 > cel: 408 286 3985 > fax: 408 297 9121 > [email protected] - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <[email protected]> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc Graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. can be posted to that URL. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <[email protected]> Mike Cantwell <[email protected]> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <[email protected]> David Heald: <[email protected]>
