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

A research team from the Technical University of Munich, led by Robin Kirschner, has published a groundbreaking paper establishing the first comprehensive energy-based Injury Protection Database for human-robot interaction. The study addresses a critical gap in robotics safety: while current standards like EN ISO 10218-2:2025 provide thresholds for blunt impacts, they don't cover edged, pointed, or shearing collisions that occur in real-world constrained environments. By systematically testing collisions on porcine tissue surrogates (which closely mimic human tissue), the researchers discovered that collision angle significantly affects injury outcomes, with unconstrained shearing contacts resulting in fewer injuries than perpendicular impacts.

The team's methodology involved reevaluating all prior porcine surrogate data to establish precise energy thresholds across multiple geometries and contact types. This database enables robotics engineers to develop meaningful energy-limiting controllers that can ensure safety across a wide range of realistic collision events, not just idealized perpendicular impacts. The findings have immediate implications for humanoid robotics, collaborative robots in manufacturing, and any system where humans and robots share physical space. This represents a major step toward truly safe human-robot coexistence by providing clinically grounded, scalable safety validation data that previous standards lacked.