Safety certifications you can't fake — ISO 10218, ISO/TS 15066, ANSI/RIA

A robot arm bearing a "CE marked to ISO 10218-1" certification is not a certified robot system. It is a certified robot component. The difference matters when something goes wrong and the question is: who conducted the risk assessment on the complete installation, and to what standard?

Most operator injuries from robotic systems do not involve the robot malfunctioning. They involve correctly functioning robots in installations that were not properly risk-assessed as a complete system. ISO 10218-1 covers the robot itself. ISO 10218-2 covers the installation. ISO/TS 15066 (now absorbed into ISO 10218-2:2025) covers collaborative human-robot workspace specifically. ANSI/RIA R15.06 is the U.S. national adoption of those standards with American regulatory alignment.

Here is what each standard actually requires, why they are layered, and what to look for on a vendor's datasheet and certification documents.

The standard hierarchy

These three standards form a cascade. Understanding the structure explains why a robot bearing one certification may not satisfy your deployment obligation.

ISO 10218-1:2025 — The robot manufacturer's obligation

ISO 10218-1 defines what the robot manufacturer must do before shipping a product. It covers:

• Design requirements for the robot's mechanical structure, control system, and emergency stop
• Required control modes: manual (T1/T2 teach mode with velocity limiting) and automatic
• Safety-rated monitoring functions: speed monitoring, position monitoring, joint torque limits
• Requirements for safety-rated I/O: the digital and network interfaces through which safety-rated commands (safe stop, safe speed) are exchanged with external safety systems
• Documentation requirements: the robot manufacturer must supply a risk assessment for the robot as a component and identify the foreseeable hazards the integrator must address

The key phrase is "as a component." ISO 10218-1 compliance means the robot itself is appropriately designed and tested. It says nothing about how the robot is installed, guarded, or programmed in a real application.

What you should see on a compliant datasheet: a declaration of conformity citing ISO 10218-1 (the specific edition year matters — 2011 or 2025) and, for CE marking in the EU, reference to the Machinery Directive (2006/42/EC) or its successor, the Machinery Regulation (EU 2023/1230).

ISO 10218-2:2025 — The integrator's obligation

ISO 10218-2 is the system integrator's standard. It governs how robots are installed into a production environment and covers:

• Risk assessment methodology for the complete robot system under ISO 12100 framework
• Safeguarding selection: which physical and electronic safeguards (light curtains, safety scanners, force-limiting hardware, physical barriers) are appropriate for each identified hazard
• Safe distance calculation: the standstill distance formula (incorporating stopping time and detection zone response time) from ISO 13855 determines how far back safety devices must be placed
• Collaborative operation requirements: the four collaborative modes — Safety-Rated Monitored Stop (SRMS), Hand Guiding, Speed and Separation Monitoring (SSM), and Power and Force Limiting (PFL) — with the requirements each mode imposes on the system design
• Validation and verification requirements: what must be documented, measured, and recorded before the system is released for production

Who is responsible: the system integrator — the company that designs and builds the robot cell — bears primary responsibility for ISO 10218-2 compliance. If a manufacturer purchases a robot and self-integrates it into their own production line, they become the integrator under this standard and assume that responsibility.

This is where many small and mid-market buyers create unintended liability: they purchase a robot directly from a vendor and install it without engaging a certified system integrator, then assume the robot's CE mark covers the installation.

ISO/TS 15066 and its absorption into 10218-2:2025

ISO/TS 15066:2016 was the dedicated standard for collaborative robot applications — those where humans and robots share workspace without guarding between them. Its most cited section is Annex A, which provides body-region-specific limits for contact force and pressure based on pain-onset research. These are the numbers that define whether a PFL (Power and Force Limiting) collaborative application is acceptable without a barrier.

In 2025, ISO 10218-2:2025 absorbed the substantive requirements of ISO/TS 15066 into the main body of the standard. The TS document remains in circulation but the normative requirements are now in ISO 10218-2:2025.

What this means in practice: if a vendor's datasheet still cites ISO/TS 15066 as a standalone certification, that is still valid — the technical requirements are unchanged. But the authoritative current reference is ISO 10218-2:2025.

The biomechanical limits in brief: Annex A specifies maximum transient and quasi-static contact force and pressure for each body region (hands, forearms, shoulder, skull, etc.). For example, the maximum transient contact force for the hand/finger area is 140 N. These limits determine the force-limiting hardware settings for cobots in shared-workspace applications. A vendor should be able to tell you, for their robot at your intended configuration, what maximum speed the PFL mode permits at that force threshold.

ANSI/RIA R15.06 — The U.S. national standard

ANSI/RIA R15.06 is the U.S. domestic industrial robot safety standard, maintained by the Association for Advancing Automation (A3). The 2025 revision was adapted directly from ISO 10218-1:2025 and ISO 10218-2:2025, aligning U.S. requirements with the international standard more closely than any prior version.

OSHA does not enforce ANSI/RIA R15.06 directly as a rule, but it is referenced in OSHA's general industry standards under the General Duty Clause and is the benchmark used in OSHA compliance assessments and post-incident investigation. In practical terms: a U.S. installation that does not meet ANSI/RIA R15.06 is a liability exposure even if no federal citation is issued.

What "CE marked" and "certified" actually mean

CE marking is a self-declaration by the manufacturer (or integrator for the complete system) that the product meets applicable EU directives. For robots, the relevant directive is the Machinery Directive/Regulation. CE marking is not third-party tested for most robots — it is declared by the manufacturer based on their internal testing and documentation.

This means a CE mark on a datasheet tells you the manufacturer believes the robot meets the standard. It does not tell you a notified body (a third-party certification authority, such as TÜV, Bureau Veritas, or SGS) independently tested and validated that claim. For Safety Integrity Level (SIL) claims — particularly SIL 2 or SIL 3 on safety-rated monitoring functions — third-party assessment is typically required and is meaningful.

Ask: "Is this a notified-body-issued certificate or a manufacturer self-declaration?" For any safety-rated function (SIL-rated safety I/O, PLC Safety, functional safety monitoring), push for the notified body certificate reference number and expiration.

PLr (Performance Level required) vs. PL (Performance Level achieved): ISO 13849 defines Performance Levels (a through e) for safety functions. The integrator's risk assessment determines the required PL (PLr) for each safety function in the installation. The robot's safety-rated I/O must achieve a PL equal to or exceeding PLr. A datasheet that lists "PLd" or "PLe" for a safety I/O channel is telling you something quantifiable; a datasheet that says "meets safety requirements" is telling you nothing.

The risk assessment you cannot skip

ISO 10218-2 (and ANSI/RIA R15.06) require a formal risk assessment for every robot installation. This is not a document the robot manufacturer provides — it is a document the integrator produces for the specific application.

A valid risk assessment under ISO 12100 (the general machinery risk assessment methodology) includes:

1. Hazard identification: every hazard the robot system can create, including motion hazards, pinch points, payload drop hazards, and interaction hazards in collaborative zones
2. Risk estimation: likelihood of exposure, severity of harm, and ability to avoid — combined into a risk level for each identified hazard
3. Risk reduction: safeguard selection to reduce identified risks to acceptable levels
4. Residual risk communication: what hazards remain after safeguards are in place and how operators are informed

The risk assessment must be documented, signed, and retained. If an incident occurs, this document is the first thing an OSHA inspector or plaintiff's attorney will request.

Who is not qualified to produce this: a robot sales engineer. The system integrator's safety engineer, or an independent functional safety engineer with a TÜV certificate or equivalent, should produce or review it.

How to evaluate a vendor's safety claims

On the datasheet, look for:

Questions to ask the applications team:

• "What is the maximum TCP speed your PFL mode allows at the ISO/TS 15066 Annex A force threshold for a hand-contact scenario?"
• "Do you have a published stopping time and stopping distance curve at each operating mode? I need this for the safe distance calculation."
• "Can you provide a sample risk assessment or a reference integrator who has completed a compliant installation for a similar application?"
• "What safety-rated I/O channels does the robot expose, at what PL rating, and can we communicate safety commands over the fieldbus rather than hardwired I/O?"

The 2025 standards update and what it changes

The 2025 revisions to ISO 10218-1 and ISO 10218-2 are the most significant update to the industrial robot safety framework in 15 years. ISO 10218-1 expanded from approximately 50 pages to 95 pages; ISO 10218-2 expanded from 72 pages to 223 pages. The major substantive changes:

• Formal absorption of ISO/TS 15066 collaborative workspace requirements into ISO 10218-2
• New classification system for robot types beyond traditional 6-axis manipulators: mobile robots, parallel kinematics, cable-driven robots
• Clearer functional safety requirements aligned with IEC 62061 and ISO 13849
• New collaborative operation mode definitions with more precise speed-separation-monitoring methodology
• Expanded documentation requirements for both robot manufacturers and system integrators

If you are evaluating a robot certified to the 2011 version of ISO 10218, it is not automatically non-compliant — 2011 certification remains valid for existing installations. But new installations and new integrators should be working to the 2025 standard.

ANSI/RIA R15.06-2025 tracks directly to the 2025 ISO editions, so the U.S. and international standards are now more closely aligned than at any point since the 2006 revision.

The bottom line

A robot's safety certification documents its design compliance as a component. Your installation's compliance is your (or your integrator's) responsibility and requires a risk assessment specific to your application, your environment, and your operating modes. No datasheet certification covers that.

Verify whether claimed SIL or PL ratings are notified-body-issued or self-declared. Know which collaborative modes your intended application requires and verify the robot's PFL force limits at your operating speed. And confirm that whoever is building your cell has produced — or will produce — a documented risk assessment that will survive regulatory scrutiny.

Next in this series: Battery life, charge time, and uptime math