International Robot Standards

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is the worldwide federation of national standards organisations. Standards concerning robots are prepared by ISO Technical Committee 184 Subcommittee 2, with the title Robots for industrial environments. Before becoming an International Standard, a Draft International Standard (DIS) prepared by an ISO Technical Committee must be approved by at least 75% of national standards organisations that vote on the matter.

IFR members use the definition of the term ‘robot’ contained in International Standard ISO 8373 when compiling statistics of manipulating industrial robots installed in particular countries. Such a robot is defined to be an ‘automatically controlled, reprogrammable multipurpose manipulator programmable in three or more axes’. Standardised definitions for other kinds of robots are currently under development within IFR.

Further information about robot standards includes:

• Subcommittee 2 of ISO Technical Committee 184
• List of ISO Documents Pertaining to Robots
• Activities of Subcommittee 2 of ISO Technical Committee 184