Robotic haircutting represents an emerging application of service robotics where safety is paramount. Unlike conventional collaborative or domestic tasks, haircutting requires prolonged operation in close proximity to the human head, one of the most vulnerable body regions, while relying on sharp or heated tools. These characteristics make safety concerns central not only to functional reliability but also to user acceptance. This paper reviews the safety landscape of haircutting robots by examining risks across the entire workflow and synthesizing lessons from related domains such as collaborative robotics, healthcare robotics, and autonomous systems. A three-layer framework—mechanical, sensor, and algorithmic—is used to organize existing approaches and identify how safety can be embedded from hardware design to control logic. Highlights opportunities and unresolved challenges in ensuring safe human–robot interaction in haircutting scenarios, providing guidance for future research and deployment.
Huang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.