1. Willow Garage Safety Program
The possibility of injury can never be completely eliminated when working with a PR2. Therefore, Willow Garage has instituted a safety program to focus continual effort and attention on risk reduction. The program is managed by a Safety Board and has three main goals:
- Anticipation: identifying potential hazards associated with the PR2
- Mitigation: taking actions to reduce the likelihood and severity of hazards
- Communication: exchanging information about safety within the community
The foundation of the safety program is an ongoing effort to identify ways a PR2 could cause damage, which we refer to as hazards. For example, a robot could cause damage by running into a person or falling down stairs. The Safety Board maintains a list of all known hazards in a document, which can be found on this site (Hazards Page). Anyone who works with a PR2 should review this list regularly. If you know of a potential source of damage that is not covered by one of the hazards in the list, please let us know, using one of the contact methods described at the bottom of this page.
When a hazard is identified, one or more of the following steps is taken:
A design change is made to mitigate the potential damage. Examples of these can be found on the Design for Risk Reduction page.
A guideline is written to let people know how to avoid the potential damage. The list of guidelines can be found on the Guidelines for using a PR2 page.
- A warning sticker is attached to the robot.
Communication is key to the safety program. There are several sources of information available to you:
These web pages (see the Safety page for an overview)
Chapter 2 of the User Manual
A Safety Officer for each PR2 site assists with two-way communication (see the Safety Officers page for a fuller description of their role)
If you have any concerns about the safety of any Willow Garage robot or if you witness a safety-related incident, please contact the Willow Garage Safety Board and let us know the details of your concern or the incident you witnessed.
By email: safety@willowgarage.com
Or by phone: 650-475-9794