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ISO/TS 15066

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Scope

• Collaborative robot systems (robot + end-effector + cell) operating in Power and Force Limiting (PFL) mode per ISO 10218.
• Quantitative biomechanical limits for transient (impact, ≤0.5 s) and quasi-static (clamping, >0.5 s) contact.
• Contact-pressure and contact-force thresholds per body region (head, face, chest, abdomen, upper limb, hand, etc.) — Annex A.

• Safety-rated Monitored Stop (SMS), Hand Guiding (HG), or Speed-and-Separation Monitoring (SSM) modes — the other three collaborative modes of ISO 10218. Those have their own clauses and do not require force / pressure verification.

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What the thresholds look like

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What Roboticks supports

• Clause-level derivation from ISO/TS 15066, particularly the Annex A tables.
• Per-body-region requirement structure — author one requirement per (body region, contact mode) tuple, derive it from the corresponding Annex A row.
• Sim-based force measurement — capture wrench data on contact-candidate surfaces in Gazebo or Webots; the SDK provides roboticks.gazebo.contact_force() and roboticks.webots.touch_sensor() helpers.
• Hardware-test ingestion — JUnit XML from your hardware-in-the-loop rig with roboticks.confirms properties tying back to the derived requirement.
• MCAP capture of contact events — every contact scenario records a bag containing TF, contact wrenches, joint states. The evidence pack references the MCAPs.

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What Roboticks does not do

• We do not maintain the Annex A threshold tables. Pull them from your licensed copy of ISO/TS 15066.
• We do not provide certified contact-force sensors. You bring the hardware or the validated sim model.
• We do not perform the biomechanical-equivalence assessment that justifies sim-only verification (when sim is your evidence vehicle, your safety engineer documents the equivalence).

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Sim-based vs hardware verification

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Example derived requirement

- id: REQ-PFL-007
  title: Quasi-static contact force on upper arm below TS 15066 Annex A limit
  type: safety
  asil_pl: PLd
  derives_from:
    - standard: iso-ts-15066-2016
      clause: "Annex A, Table A.2 — upper arm, quasi-static"
      edition: "2016"
    - standard: iso-10218-1-2025
      clause: "§5.10.5 Power and Force Limiting"
      edition: "2025-07"
  text: |
    In any operating mode where contact with an operator's upper arm
    is foreseeable, the cobot shall not produce a quasi-static
    contact force exceeding the Annex A Table A.2 quasi-static limit
    for the upper arm. Verified across the contact-scenario set
    defined in `scenarios/contact_upper_arm.yaml`.
  acceptance:
    - test: tests/pfl/test_upper_arm_contact.py

import pytest
from roboticks import confirms
from roboticks.gazebo import contact_force

CONTACT_SCENARIOS = load_scenarios("scenarios/contact_upper_arm.yaml")
UPPER_ARM_QS_LIMIT_N = 150  # placeholder; consult ISO/TS 15066 Annex A

@pytest.mark.parametrize("scenario", CONTACT_SCENARIOS, ids=lambda s: s.id)
@confirms("REQ-PFL-007")
def test_upper_arm_contact(robot, scenario):
    robot.load_world(scenario.world)
    robot.execute(scenario.trajectory)
    peak_quasi_static = contact_force(
        robot, body_region="upper_arm", duration_threshold_s=0.5
    ).peak()
    assert peak_quasi_static < UPPER_ARM_QS_LIMIT_N, (
        f"{scenario.id}: peak {peak_quasi_static} N exceeds limit"
    )

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Conformity route

1. Pins ISO 10218-1:2025 + ISO 10218-2:2025 + ISO/TS 15066.
2. Derives per-body-region contact requirements from Annex A.
3. Defines a contact-scenario set covering every foreseeable contact configuration the risk assessment identified.
4. Runs the scenarios in sim, captures MCAPs, generates evidence pack.
5. Anchors with a hardware spot-test set for sim-vs-reality equivalence.

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Pinning

rbtk standard pin iso-ts-15066-2016 --project acme-cobot/firmware

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Next steps