The Safety of Domestic Robotics: A Survey of Various Safety-Related Publications

Different branches of technology are striving to come up with new advancements that will enhance civilization and ultimately improve the quality of life. In the robotics community, strides have been made to bring the use of personal robots in office and home environments on the horizon. Safety is one of the critical issues that must be guaranteed for the successful acceptance, deployment, and utilization of domestic robots. Unlike the barrier-based operational safety guarantee that is widely used in industrial robotics, safety in domestic robotics deals with a number of issues, such as intrinsic safety, collision avoidance, human detection, and advanced control techniques. In the last decade, a number of researchers have presented their works that highlighted the issue of safety in a specific part of the complete domestic robotics system. This article presents a general survey of various safety-related publications that focus on safety criteria and metrics, mechanical design and actuation, and controller design.