Energy-Based Injury Protection Database: Including Shearing Contact Thresholds for Hand and Finger Using Porcine Surrogates

2026-02-23

AI Summary

Current robotic safety standards lack injury threshold data for shear contact and non-perpendicular collision scenarios, limiting their ability to support comprehensive safety control in real-world human–robot interaction. This study addresses this gap by incorporating shear contact into an energy-based threshold framework for the first time. Using porcine tissue surrogates, unconstrained collision experiments were conducted to systematically investigate injury mechanisms in the hand and fingers under varying geometries and impact angles, with particular emphasis on shear configurations. Through biomechanical analysis and energy modeling, the work establishes the first energy-based injury protection database encompassing multiple contact types and angles. Findings indicate that unconstrained shear collisions pose a lower injury risk compared to perpendicular impacts, providing critical empirical support for the development of energy-limited safety controllers tailored to realistic human–robot interaction scenarios.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Manipulation
• Natural Language Processing: Safety and Robustness
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments

Abstract

While robotics research continues to propose strategies for collision avoidance in human-robot interaction, the reality of constrained environments and future humanoid systems makes contact inevitable. To mitigate injury risks, energy-constraining control approaches are commonly used, often relying on safety thresholds derived from blunt impact data in EN ISO 10218-2:2025. However, this dataset does not extend to edged or pointed collisions. Without scalable, clinically grounded datasets covering diverse contact scenarios, safety validation remains limited. Previous studies have laid the groundwork by assessing surrogate-based velocity and mass limits across various geometries, focusing on perpendicular impacts. This study expands those datasets by including shearing contact scenarios in unconstrained collisions, revealing that collision angle significantly affects injury outcomes. Notably, unconstrained shearing contacts result in fewer injuries than perpendicular ones. By reevaluating all prior porcine surrogate data, we establish energy thresholds across geometries and contact types, forming the first energy-based Injury Protection Database. This enables the development of meaningful energy-limiting controllers that ensure safety across a wide range of realistic collision events.

Problem

• human-robot interaction
• injury protection
• shearing contact
• energy-based safety
• collision scenarios

Innovation

• energy-based safety
• shearing contact
• injury threshold
• porcine surrogate
• human-robot interaction