ISO 10218-1:2025

Overview

ISO 10218-1:2025 - "Robotics - Safety requirements - Part 1: Industrial robots" specifies safety requirements for the inherently safe design, risk reduction measures and information for use of industrial robots as incomplete machines. The standard focuses on preventing significant hazards during intended use and reasonably foreseeable misuse in industrial environments. It defines requirements for robot design, controls, safety functions, verification and validation, and user information.

Keywords: ISO 10218-1:2025, industrial robot safety, robot risk assessment, safety functions, controls, verification and validation

Key Topics and Technical Requirements

The standard addresses a broad array of technical topics essential to robot safety:

• Risk assessment: Identifying significant hazards, hazardous situations and hazardous events for robots used as intended.
• Robot design and materials: Mechanical strength, stability, handling, packaging, temperature/fire risks, position holding and payload setting.
• Controls and human interaction: Protection from unexpected start-up, interlocking, status indication, modes of operation, means of initiating and controlling motion.
• Safety functions and stopping: Requirements for emergency stop, protective stop, normal stop, performance and failure detection of safety functions.
• Limiting and monitoring motion: Mechanical, electro-mechanical and software-based limits; speed and separation monitoring (SSM); power and force limiting (PFL); enabling functions and monitored standstill.
• Collaborative capabilities: Hand-guided control (HGC), SSM and PFL for collaborative applications.
• Verification and validation: Procedures to verify that design and safety measures meet requirements and perform under specified conditions.
• Information for use: Marking, signals, warnings, instruction handbook and installation/maintenance information for safe integration.
• Cybersecurity and communications: Requirements to address malfunction, parameterization and communication integrity.

Note: the standard treats the robot as an incomplete machine; application-specific hazards (e.g., welding, laser cutting) and robot integration are covered in ISO 10218-2:2025.

Scope Exclusions (important)

ISO 10218-1:2025 is not applicable to robots used in underwater, military, law enforcement, airborne/space, medical, healthcare, prosthetics, consumer products, service robots accessible to the public, lifting/transporting people, or robots manufactured before publication. It also excludes severe environmental conditions, nuclear/explosive environments, and certain hazardous loads. Noise emission from the robot alone is generally excluded.

Applications and Who Uses It

This standard is essential for:

• Robot manufacturers designing inherently safe industrial robots
• System integrators and safety engineers developing robot applications
• Machine builders and OEMs incorporating robots as incomplete machines
• Compliance officers and testing bodies verifying safety conformance
• Procurement and asset managers specifying safety requirements

Use ISO 10218-1:2025 to guide design decisions, risk reduction, safety verification and documentation for compliant industrial robot products and components.

Related Standards

• ISO 10218-2:2025 - Robot integration and robot application safety requirements (complements Part 1)
• Refer to applicable functional safety and sector-specific standards when integrating or applying industrial robots.