ISO 10218-2:2025

Overview

ISO 10218-2:2025 - "Robotics - Safety requirements - Part 2: Industrial robot applications and robot cells" specifies safety requirements for the integration of industrial robot applications and robot cells. It covers the full lifecycle: design, integration, commissioning, operation, maintenance, decommissioning and disposal, and the integration of machines and components. The standard addresses risk assessment, information for use, and practical risk reduction measures while explicitly excluding certain uses (e.g., medical, military, underwater, consumer products, lifting people) and specific hazard domains (e.g., nuclear, explosive atmospheres, severe climates, hygienic processing, public access).

Keywords: ISO 10218-2:2025, industrial robot safety, robot cells, robot application integration, risk assessment, functional safety.

Key Topics and Requirements

• Risk assessment: methods for identifying significant hazards, hazardous situations and foreseeable misuse for robot applications and robot cells.
• Design requirements: materials, mechanical strength, stability, temperature/fire considerations, hazardous substances and provisions for lifting or moving components.
• Energy and component safety: handling of hazardous energy, power loss/change, component malfunction and position holding.
• Controls & functional safety: specification of safety functions, performance requirements, failure/fault detection, parameterization, speed limits, start/restart interlocks and monitored standstill.
• Robot cell integration: span-of-control, emergency stop function, multi-robot operations, single-point and remote control, and automatic workpiece feeding.
• Layout and safeguarding: cell layout, perimeter guarding, restricted spaces, prevention of trapping, limiting motion and minimum separation distances.
• Stopping & control modes: emergency stop, protective stop, normal stop, protection from unexpected start-up, enabling devices and status/warning indications.
• Safeguard technologies: guards, sensitive protective equipment (SPE), muting, override provisions and requirements for muting/overriding SPE.
• Special topics: tool centre point (TCP) and payload setting, electrical/pneumatic/hydraulic interfaces, communications, electromagnetic immunity and cybersecurity considerations.
• Documentation: information for use covering all lifecycle stages and verification/validation procedures.

Practical Applications and Who Uses It

ISO 10218-2:2025 is intended for:

• System integrators and robotic cell designers implementing industrial robot applications
• OEMs (robot manufacturers) coordinating integration requirements with users
• Safety engineers, plant managers and maintenance teams ensuring compliance and safe operation
• Compliance bodies and auditors assessing safety of robot cells
• Use cases include automated welding, material handling, machine tending, assembly lines and multi-robot cells (excluding the listed exclusions).

Related Standards

• This Part 2 complements other robotics and functional safety documents referenced within the standard (see normative references in ISO 10218-2:2025). For full compliance, integrators typically apply robot design standards and functional safety standards referenced by ISO 10218-2.

Use ISO 10218-2:2025 as the integration-level safety framework when planning, installing or verifying industrial robot applications and robot cells to ensure robust risk control and regulatory alignment.