Abstract The increasing adoption of robotic manipulators in the industry has brought the issue of robotic device safety to the forefront, particularly in the context of collaborative robotics. Among the main challenges, the evaluation of impacts with operators and objects in the workspace represents a critical issue, as accurately quantifying the magnitude of collisions is a complex task. Although current regulations propose various models for impact assessment, the suggested approaches are often oversimplified and not easily applicable in complex scenarios. To overcome this limitation, this study proposes the development of an effective mass impact model that simulates the collision between two bodies as an interaction between two lumped masses. The model is developed for both two-dimensional and three-dimensional analyses. Furthermore, it is implemented in a generic form and using a lumped-parameter robot model. This formulation enables the creation of a highly versatile model capable of overcoming the lack of knowledge of inertial parameters of robots. The approach is experimentally validated by means of a SCARA robot that collides with a cart, demonstrating the model’s applicability and accuracy.
Cesaro et al. (2026) studied this question.