Now, in a development that's drawn interest from car makers including Volkswagen, entrepreneurs Roman Weitschat and Hannes Hoeppner, working at the German Aerospace Center outside of Munich, say they have designed a way to better safeguard interactions between humans and robots with the aim of allowing them to work more closely.

Their newly-created company, Cobotect GmbH, is using the decades-old concept of airbags to cushion potentially dangerous automated parts and prevent workers from getting hurt. Increased safety would mean robots could work more efficiently and at a faster pace when near humans, according to the researchers.

“A lot of people were complaining about unsafe robots and robot tools,” Weitschat said in an interview in his laboratory. Sharp edges on parts handled by robotic arms can pose risks to workers if they are accidentally hit, making it hard to gain approval for the machines to be positioned close to humans, he said.

The death in Germany, and a clutch in the U.S., are evidence of the potential dangers posed by industrial automation. While global statistics aren’t readily available, a search through the U.S. Department of Labor’s website under accidents involving robots is grim reading. The 38 incidents between 1987 and 2016 include employees amputated, asphyxiated, struck or crushed by robots, including the most recently documented: a fatal accident at a Nissan plant four years ago.

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