Robot Safety, Ethics and Law
The methods, law and hard questions of robot safety: robot accidents and shared accountability, ISO 12100 risk assessment, functional safety calculations under ISO 13849-1:2023, IEC 62061 and IEC 61508 with validation, OSHA requirements, ANSI/A3 R15.06, NRTL listing and the EU Machinery Regulation, mobile, service and personal care robots, medical robots, automated vehicles and drones, strict product liability with CPSC reporting and recalls, AI regulation under federal policy, state laws and the EU AI Act Omnibus, cybersecurity under IEC 62443, FDA section 524B and the Cyber Resilience Act, ethics and the future of work, and a capstone safety case for a hospital service robot.
ROB-450 Year 4 3 credits 12 lessons · 5 h 13 min
Offered by HSM University · Robotics
This is the American version of this course. See the Canadian version.
What you'll learn
- Describe the history and patterns of robot accidents, classify robot hazards including failures of autonomy, and explain how responsibility is shared among manufacturers, integrators, deployers and others.
- Conduct and document an ISO 12100 risk assessment, including limits, foreseeable misuse, systematic hazard identification, risk estimation and the three-step method of risk reduction.
- Specify safety functions and determine required performance levels, and calculate MTTFd, DCavg and common cause scores to estimate the performance level achieved under ISO 13849-1.
- Apply the SIL approach of IEC 62061 and IEC 61508, including architectural constraints and the common cause factor, and plan the validation of safety functions under ISO 13849-2.
- Explain how OSHA standards, the General Duty Clause, consensus standards and NRTL listing apply to robots in the United States, and compare EU machinery law.
- Apply the safety standards for mobile, service and personal care robots, size speed-dependent protective fields and assess stability and public-space hazards.
- Explain how medical device, motor vehicle and aviation regulators authorize and oversee medical robots, automated vehicles and drones, and assess the limits of statistical evidence for autonomy.
- Analyze product liability for robots under strict liability, negligence and warranty law, and explain incident reporting, recalls, insurance and contractual risk allocation.
- Classify robot AI uses under the EU AI Act as amended in 2026, Canadian law and US federal and state law, and design an AI governance program.
- Explain how cyber attacks can defeat safety functions, apply IEC 62443 and IEC TS 63074, and describe security duties under the EU Cyber Resilience Act and North American law.
- Reason about risk distribution, meaningful human control, robots and the use of force, and the effects of automation on work, and apply professional ethics in robot projects.
- Build a safety case with claims, arguments, evidence and defeaters, together with a compliance matrix and an operational safety plan, for a service robot deployment.
Course content
12 lessons · 5 h 13 min total · final exam
- 1 Robot hazards, harms and accountability 27 min · quiz
- 2 Risk assessment and risk reduction under ISO 12100 27 min · quiz
- 3 Functional safety with ISO 13849-1 25 min · quiz
- 4 IEC 62061, IEC 61508 and validating safety functions 26 min · quiz
- 5 Machinery law, standards and conformity 25 min · quiz
- 6 Mobile, service and personal care robots 26 min · quiz
- 7 Medical robots, autonomous vehicles and other regulated robots 26 min · quiz
- 8 Product liability, recalls and insurance 26 min · quiz
- 9 AI regulation and governance for robots 25 min · quiz
- 10 Cybersecurity, safety and the law 26 min · quiz
- 11 Ethics, autonomy and the future of work 27 min · quiz
- 12 Capstone: a safety case and compliance review 27 min · quiz
- E Final exam 20 questions
Requirements
Recommended background. You can start any course at any time.
Description
The methods, law and hard questions of robot safety: robot accidents and shared accountability, ISO 12100 risk assessment, functional safety calculations under ISO 13849-1:2023, IEC 62061 and IEC 61508 with validation, OSHA requirements, ANSI/A3 R15.06, NRTL listing and the EU Machinery Regulation, mobile, service and personal care robots, medical robots, automated vehicles and drones, strict product liability with CPSC reporting and recalls, AI regulation under federal policy, state laws and the EU AI Act Omnibus, cybersecurity under IEC 62443, FDA section 524B and the Cyber Resilience Act, ethics and the future of work, and a capstone safety case for a hospital service robot.
Part of the Science stream, typically taken in year 4.