{ "meta": { "kit": "ledger-kit", "buildDate": "2026-09-15", "lastVerified": "2026-09-16", "license": "CC BY 4.0", "licenseUrl": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/", "cadence": "monthly, first Monday, and the same day for any new law or standard publication", "note": "Every row is a verdict about a document, not an opinion about robots. Verified means the document was fetched at its publisher on the date given and quoted. Reported means a reliable secondary source carries it and the primary could not be reached, and it is never printed as verified. Announced means a body said it will act and no document exists. Absent means the atlas searched and found nothing, and the search is written into the record. Open means a question nobody has settled. Every figure carries the source that printed it and the date it was true, and no figure is summed, converted or forecast.", "vocab": { "idPrefix": "PAG", "root": "/tools/physical-ai-governance-atlas", "title": "The Physical AI Governance Atlas", "short": "Physical AI Governance Atlas", "claim": "Who governs robots and physical AI, jurisdiction by jurisdiction: the binding rules, the standards, the guidance, the programs, and what nobody has settled. Each row a verdict about a document.", "changesHeading": "For a robot maker or a deployer", "kinds": [ { "key": "law", "label": "Binding law", "question": "What binds a robot maker or deployer?" }, { "key": "standard", "label": "Standard", "question": "What standard serves as evidence?" }, { "key": "guidance", "label": "Guidance", "question": "What do regulators and agencies advise?" }, { "key": "program", "label": "Program or strategy", "question": "What is the state funding or planning?" }, { "key": "question", "label": "Open question", "question": "What has nobody settled?" } ], "jurisdictions": [ { "code": "EU", "name": "European Union" }, { "code": "US", "name": "United States" }, { "code": "CN", "name": "China" }, { "code": "JP", "name": "Japan" }, { "code": "KR", "name": "South Korea" }, { "code": "UK", "name": "United Kingdom" }, { "code": "DE", "name": "Germany" }, { "code": "GLOBAL", "name": "Global" } ], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "label": "The machine" }, { "key": "ai_layer", "label": "The AI inside it" }, { "key": "liability", "label": "Liability" }, { "key": "people", "label": "Workers and bystanders" }, { "key": "data", "label": "The data it records" } ] }, "source": "https://www.gage.academy/tools/physical-ai-governance-atlas", "attribution": "GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education), Physical AI Governance Atlas", "documentation": "https://www.gage.academy/tools/physical-ai-governance-atlas/data", "methodology": "https://www.gage.academy/tools/physical-ai-governance-atlas/method" }, "records": [ { "id": "PAG-2026-0001", "slug": "eu-machinery-regulation-2023-1230", "title": "The EU Machinery Regulation applies from 14 January 2027 and puts self evolving safety functions in the third party lane", "kind": "law", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "EU", "answer": "Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 replaces the Machinery Directive from 14 January 2027. Annex I Part A lists safety components with fully or partially self evolving behaviour using machine learning approaches, and machinery embedding such systems, so a robot whose safety function learns leaves the self certification lane and takes third party conformity assessment.", "key_facts": [ "Article 54: the Regulation shall apply from 14 January 2027, with earlier dates for the notified body and delegated act provisions.", "Article 51(2): Directive 2006/42/EC is repealed with effect from 14 January 2027, and references to it are read against the correlation table in Annex XII.", "Annex I Part A points 5 and 6 name safety components with fully or partially self evolving behaviour using machine learning approaches ensuring safety functions, and machinery embedding such systems.", "Recital 55 limits the third party route to systems with fully or partially self evolving behaviour; software that cannot learn or evolve stays outside it." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "Essential health and safety requirements in Annex III bind the whole machine, and the declaration of conformity and technical documentation are the evidence.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "A safety function that learns is named in Annex I Part A, so a notified body assesses it rather than the maker alone.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "The operator is protected through the essential requirements and the information for use, not through a separate duty on the deployer.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "data", "value": "The Regulation says nothing about the hours a robot records in service, and that silence is where the EU Data Act and the GDPR take over.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "If any safety function of your robot learns or evolves after it leaves the factory, your conformity route changes: a notified body, not your own declaration, closes the file, and the clock is 14 January 2027. Read your product against Annex I Part A points 5 and 6 first, because the answer decides the cost and the lead time of every later model. Nothing here covers the recordings the robot makes; for that, see the Embodied AI Data Ledger.", "sources": [ { "name": "EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 on machinery", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32023R1230", "type": "primary", "date": "2023-06-29" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0002", "PAG-2026-0006", "PAG-2026-0019" ], "tags": [ "Machinery Regulation", "conformity assessment", "machine learning safety functions", "European Union" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0002", "slug": "eu-ai-act-machinery-moved-to-annex-i-section-b", "title": "The Digital Omnibus took AI enabled machinery out of the AI Act high risk lane and handed it to the Machinery Regulation", "kind": "law", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "EU", "answer": "Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 deletes point 1 of Annex I Section A of the AI Act, the entry that named the old Machinery Directive, and adds the Machinery Regulation to Section B. For those machines only Article 6(1), Articles 102 to 109 and Article 112 of the AI Act apply, while machinery law absorbs the high risk requirements through delegated acts.", "key_facts": [ "Omnibus Article 1 point 41: in Annex I, Section A, point 1 is deleted, and Section B gains point 21, Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 on machinery.", "AI Act Article 2(2): for high risk systems related to products covered by Section B of Annex I, only Article 6(1), Articles 102 to 109 and Article 112 apply.", "Omnibus Article 2 adds a duty on the Commission to amend Annex III of the Machinery Regulation with health and safety requirements reflecting AI Act Chapter III Section 2 and Articles 17, 19, 72 and 73.", "Omnibus Article 1 point 40 resets Article 113: Annex III high risk rules from 2 December 2027, Annex I high risk rules from 2 August 2028.", "Before this amendment Annex I Section A point 1 named Directive 2006/42/EC, not Regulation (EU) 2023/1230, which is why older guidance still cites the Directive." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "Machine safety returns to one rulebook, the Machinery Regulation, with AI requirements written into its Annex III by delegated act.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "The AI layer in a machine is still classified by AI Act Article 6(1), but the obligations that follow it are the machinery ones.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "liability", "value": "The Omnibus changes nothing about who pays; that sits with the revised Product Liability Directive and national law.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "If you build robots for the EU, the compliance target moved. You are no longer preparing two parallel files, one for the AI Act and one for machinery: you are preparing one machinery file that will carry AI requirements inside it, and the date that matters for the AI layer is 2 August 2028 rather than 2 August 2027. Anyone still planning against Annex I Section A point 1 and the old Machinery Directive is planning against a deleted line.", "sources": [ { "name": "EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 amending the AI Act", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32026R1744", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-07-24" }, { "name": "EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), Article 2(2) and Annex I", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32024R1689", "type": "primary", "date": "2024-07-12" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0001", "PAG-2026-0003" ], "tags": [ "AI Act", "Digital Omnibus", "Annex I", "machinery", "European Union" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0003", "slug": "eu-ai-act-article-50-robots-that-talk", "title": "A robot that talks to people owes an AI Act disclosure, and a robot that reads emotions owes another", "kind": "law", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "EU", "answer": "AI Act Article 50 binds any robot whose system interacts directly with a person: the person must be informed they are dealing with an AI system unless that is obvious. Deployers of emotion recognition or biometric categorisation must tell the people exposed to it, and synthetic audio or video output must be machine readable as artificial.", "key_facts": [ "Article 50(1) puts the duty on the provider to design the system so the person is informed, unless it is obvious to a reasonably well informed and observant person.", "Article 50(3) puts the duty on the deployer of an emotion recognition or biometric categorisation system to inform the people exposed, and to process personal data under the GDPR.", "Article 50(2) requires outputs of synthetic audio, image, video or text to be marked in a machine readable format and detectable as artificially generated.", "Article 113 sets the general date of application at 2 August 2026, which is when the Article 50 duties began to bite." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "The duty attaches to the conversational or perception layer of the robot, whatever its body, and it is about disclosure rather than performance.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "A bystander who is spoken to, or whose face or voice is read for emotion, must be told, and the deployer carries that duty.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "data", "value": "Article 50(3) points back at the GDPR for the personal data, and settles nothing about storage or retention on its own.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "A reception robot, a care robot and a warehouse assistant that answers questions all need a disclosure line, and it is a design duty on you rather than a sticker the customer adds. If your robot infers mood from a face or a voice, your deployer has a second, separate duty to tell the people in front of it. Write both into the manual and into the commissioning checklist, because the deployer cannot invent them at the door.", "sources": [ { "name": "EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), Article 50", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32024R1689", "type": "primary", "date": "2024-07-12" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0002", "PAG-2026-0030" ], "tags": [ "AI Act", "Article 50", "transparency", "service robots", "European Union" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0004", "slug": "eu-product-liability-directive-2024-2853", "title": "The revised EU product liability rules make software a product and reach a robot that changes after it is sold", "kind": "law", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "EU", "answer": "Directive (EU) 2024/2853 replaces the 1985 product liability regime. Its definition of product covers software, so the code and the model inside a robot are in scope, and member states had to transpose it by 9 December 2026. Defectiveness is judged including the effect of learning and of updates under the manufacturer's control.", "key_facts": [ "Article 4(1): product means all movables, even if integrated into or inter connected with another movable or an immovable, and it includes electricity, digital manufacturing files, raw materials and software.", "Article 22(1): member states shall bring into force the measures necessary to comply with the Directive by 9 December 2026.", "The Directive applies to products placed on the market after that transposition date; older products stay under the 1985 regime." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "liability", "value": "A claimant can sue the maker of the software or the AI system as the manufacturer of a product, without proving negligence.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "The model is not a service outside the regime any more; it is part of the product whose defectiveness is judged.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "Compliance with machinery law is evidence, not a defence in itself; a robot can be conforming and still be defective.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "Your software release process is now a liability surface. A model update that changes how a robot behaves sits inside the product you placed on the market, and the burden a claimant carries is lighter than in the old regime. Keep the version history, the training and validation record and the field reports for every fleet, because the file you can produce years later is the only defence that survives.", "sources": [ { "name": "EUR-Lex, Directive (EU) 2024/2853 on liability for defective products", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32024L2853", "type": "primary", "date": "2024-11-18" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0005", "PAG-2026-0029" ], "tags": [ "product liability", "software as product", "European Union", "robot makers" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0005", "slug": "eu-ai-liability-directive-withdrawn", "title": "The EU withdrew its AI Liability Directive, so there is no AI specific fault regime for a robot that harms someone", "kind": "law", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "EU", "answer": "The proposal to adapt non contractual civil liability rules to artificial intelligence, COM(2022)496, appears in Annex IV of the Commission work programme for 2025 as a withdrawal, and the withdrawal was published in the Official Journal on 6 October 2025. Nothing replaced it. A victim of a robot falls back on the product liability regime and on national fault law.", "key_facts": [ "Official Journal C/2025/5423 of 6 October 2025 lists COM(2022)496 final, procedure 2022/0303 (COD), among the withdrawn Commission proposals.", "Commission work programme 2025, Annex IV item 32, gives the reason: no foreseeable agreement, and the Commission will assess whether another proposal should be tabled or another approach chosen.", "The proposal would have eased the burden of proof and given disclosure of evidence about high risk AI systems; neither survives in binding EU law." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "liability", "value": "No AI specific presumption of causation exists in EU law; the claimant proves the case under the product liability regime or national fault rules.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "The withdrawal leaves the opacity problem to the courts, since the disclosure duty that was meant to answer it was in the withdrawn text.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "Do not build a compliance plan around an AI liability regime that does not exist. Two instruments carry the risk instead: the revised Product Liability Directive for defective products, and the national fault law of every member state you sell into, which differs country by country. The practical consequence is that your evidence trail, not a harmonised presumption, decides how a claim goes.", "sources": [ { "name": "EUR-Lex, Official Journal C/2025/5423, withdrawal of Commission proposals", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:C_202505423", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-10-06" }, { "name": "EUR-Lex, Commission work programme 2025, COM(2025) 45 final, Annex IV", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52025DC0045", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-02-11" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0004", "PAG-2026-0029" ], "tags": [ "AI liability", "withdrawn proposal", "European Union", "civil liability" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0006", "slug": "eu-general-product-safety-regulation", "title": "EU product safety law already names learning and predictive functions as a safety factor for consumer robots", "kind": "law", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "EU", "answer": "Regulation (EU) 2023/988 has applied since 13 December 2024 and catches consumer products that no sectoral law fully covers. Article 6(1)(h) puts the evolving, learning and predictive functionalities of a product among the factors that decide whether it is safe, which reaches a home robot long before the AI Act machinery route bites.", "key_facts": [ "Article 6(1)(h): when required by the nature of the product, the evolving, learning and predictive functionalities of the product are a factor in assessing safety.", "Article 2(1): the Regulation applies where no specific provisions with the same objective under Union law regulate the safety of the products concerned, and only to the risks not covered by those requirements.", "Article 52: the Regulation shall apply from 13 December 2024, and Article 50 repeals the old General Product Safety Directive from the same date." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "A consumer robot must be safe as placed on the market, and the general safety requirement fills gaps that sectoral law leaves.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "Learning and prediction are named as safety relevant characteristics, which is rare in product law written before the AI Act.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "The consumer is the protected person, and recalls and corrective action run through the market surveillance chapters.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "If you sell a robot to households, this is the rule that already applies to you, today, whatever the AI Act timetable says. Your risk assessment has to answer what the product learns and how its behaviour can drift, and your recall plan has to work when the drift shows up in the field. Treat an over the air behaviour change as a product safety event, not just an engineering release.", "sources": [ { "name": "EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2023/988 on general product safety", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32023R0988", "type": "primary", "date": "2023-05-23" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0030", "PAG-2026-0001" ], "tags": [ "product safety", "consumer robots", "European Union", "learning functions" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0007", "slug": "eu-apply-ai-strategy-robotics", "title": "The EU's robotics plan is one section of the Apply AI Strategy, and it funds uptake rather than rules", "kind": "program", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "EU", "answer": "The Commission communication COM(2025) 723 of 8 October 2025 devotes section 2.2 to robotics, which it calls physical AI. The action is a Catalyst for the uptake of European Robotics with the AI Data and Robotics Association, plus funded sectoral acceleration pipelines. It is industrial policy, and it creates no obligation for a robot maker.", "key_facts": [ "Section 2.2 opens on the installed base: more than 90.000 industrial robots installed in 2023 and more than 400 service robotics producers in Europe.", "The Commission commits to establish a Catalyst for the uptake of European Robotics with the AI Data and Robotics Association.", "The same section funds sectoral acceleration pipelines for AI powered robotics, prioritised with end user industries." ], "figures": [ { "label": "Industrial robots installed in Europe in 2023, as the Commission states it", "value": 90000, "unit": "robots", "as_of": "2025-10-08", "source": 0 }, { "label": "European service robotics producers, as the Commission states it", "value": 400, "unit": "producers", "as_of": "2025-10-08", "source": 0 } ], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "There is European money for adoption, and there is a named door to it, but nothing in this strategy changes what you must prove to sell a robot. Treat it as a customer subsidy and a route into consortia, and keep your compliance plan anchored in the Machinery Regulation and the AI Act instead.", "sources": [ { "name": "EUR-Lex, Communication COM(2025) 723 final, Apply AI Strategy", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX%3A52025DC0723", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-10-08" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0008", "PAG-2026-0001" ], "tags": [ "Apply AI Strategy", "robotics uptake", "European Union", "industrial policy" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0008", "slug": "eu-no-dedicated-robotics-strategy", "title": "The EU has no dedicated robotics strategy document, only a research policy page and a section of the AI strategy", "kind": "program", "verdict": "absent", "jurisdiction": "EU", "answer": "The Commission's own robotics policy page describes funding, more than 120 research projects and the SPARC partnership, and names no strategy document and no date. The robotics commitments the Commission has actually written down sit inside the Apply AI Strategy of October 2025. A standalone European robotics strategy does not exist on the Commission's pages.", "key_facts": [ "The Commission robotics policy page describes a portfolio of over 120 research projects and coordination actions and the SPARC public private partnership.", "The page's own news list runs to January 2026 and names no robotics strategy document.", "The robotics actions the Commission has committed to in writing are the Catalyst and the acceleration pipelines in Apply AI Strategy section 2.2." ], "figures": [], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "If a vendor, a consultant or a grant deck cites a European robotics strategy at you, ask for the document reference. What exists is a research and uptake policy plus one section of an AI communication. Plan your European roadmap against the Machinery Regulation and the AI Act calendar, which are real, and treat robotics policy as funding rather than as a coming rulebook.", "sources": [ { "name": "European Commission, Robotics policy page, Shaping Europe's digital future", "url": "https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/robotics", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-15" }, { "name": "EUR-Lex, Communication COM(2025) 723 final, Apply AI Strategy", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX%3A52025DC0723", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-10-08" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0007" ], "tags": [ "robotics strategy", "European Union", "absent", "industrial policy" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15", "search": "On 15 September 2026 the atlas read the Commission's robotics policy page at digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu, which lists SPARC, research calls and news items and names no strategy document, and searched the Apply AI Strategy COM(2025) 723 full text, where robotics appears as section 2.2 with two uptake actions and no legislative plan. Nothing on either page names a robotics strategy, its adoption date or its reference number." }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0009", "slug": "us-osha-technical-manual-industrial-robots", "title": "US robot safety enforcement runs on general machine guarding plus a technical manual that points at private standards", "kind": "guidance", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "US", "answer": "OSHA has no robot specific standard. Its Technical Manual section IV chapter 4 prepares inspectors for robot systems and directs them to private standards: it calls ANSI and RIA R15.06 the safety standard for robots, points integrators at part 2, and cites the general machine guarding rule at 29 CFR 1910.212 as the enforceable requirement.", "key_facts": [ "The chapter states that the safety standard for robots is part 1 and part 2 of ANSI and RIA R15.06-2012, Industrial Robots and Robot Systems, Safety Requirements.", "It tells integrators that the safety standard for integrating robot systems into robot applications is part 2 of R15.06, with RIA technical report R15.606 for collaborative applications.", "It cites 29 CFR 1910.212, general requirements for all machines, which requires guarding to protect the operator and other employees.", "It says R15.06 will be updated following the revision of ISO 10218-1 and ISO 10218-2, a revision that was published in 2025." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "The enforceable hook is general machine guarding; the robot specific content is a consensus standard the manual points to.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "The chapter separates collaborative from non collaborative applications by whether the robot is designed for direct interaction with workers.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "The manual notes that advances in artificial intelligence have boosted robot capability, and sets no requirement for a learned controller.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "In an American plant your inspection risk is a general duty and a general guarding citation, argued against a private standard you have to buy. The practical move is to conform to the current consensus standards and keep the risk assessment that shows it, because that document is what an inspector reads when there is no robot rule to cite. Note that the manual still names the 2012 edition while the ISO parts it tracks were reissued in 2025.", "sources": [ { "name": "OSHA Technical Manual, Section IV Chapter 4, Industrial Robot Systems and Industrial Robot System Safety", "url": "https://www.osha.gov/otm/section-4-safety-hazards/chapter-4", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-15" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0013", "PAG-2026-0019", "PAG-2026-0020" ], "tags": [ "OSHA", "machine guarding", "United States", "industrial robots" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0010", "slug": "us-nhtsa-av-framework-part-555", "title": "The US regulates autonomous vehicles through exemptions and crash reporting, not through a self driving rule", "kind": "guidance", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "US", "answer": "NHTSA announced an automated vehicle framework on 24 April 2025 and, in a Federal Register notice of 31 July 2026, asked for comment on interim guidance for commercial deployment exemptions under 49 U.S.C. 30113 and 49 CFR part 555. The same notice records an expanded exemption program for domestic vehicles and a streamlined crash reporting order.", "key_facts": [ "The notice summarises the framework's three principles and requests comment on interim guidance for commercial deployment exemptions, with comments requested on or before 31 August 2026.", "Since the April 2025 framework NHTSA expanded the Automated Vehicle Exemption Program to include vehicles built in the United States.", "NHTSA amended Standing General Order 2021-01 on crash reporting for automated driving and certain driver assistance systems; the amendment took effect with the reporting period that began 16 June 2025.", "General Exemptions under section 30113 let a manufacturer deploy vehicles that do not comply with all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "The vehicle must still meet the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards unless an exemption is granted, one applicant at a time.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "No federal standard sets performance requirements for the driving automation system itself; rulemakings are open, not finished.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 }, { "key": "data", "value": "The Standing General Order makes crash reporting the one mandatory data flow out of a deployed fleet.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "Your American route to the road is an application, not a certification. Budget for an exemption petition and for the safety case that supports it, and build the crash reporting pipeline before you deploy, because that order is the one obligation that bites from day one. Watch the docket: the interim guidance is being written in public and the terms of your petition will follow it.", "sources": [ { "name": "Federal Register, AV Framework Updates and Request for Comments on Interim Guidance, NHTSA", "url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/31/2026-15483/av-framework-updates-and-request-for-comments-on-interim-guidance", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-07-31" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0013", "PAG-2026-0024", "PAG-2026-0025" ], "tags": [ "NHTSA", "automated vehicles", "exemptions", "United States", "crash reporting" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0011", "slug": "us-ai-action-plan-robotics", "title": "America's AI Action Plan treats robotics as a manufacturing race and orders a supply chain convening, not a safety rule", "kind": "program", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "US", "answer": "The White House AI Action Plan of July 2025 puts robotics under next generation manufacturing. It names autonomous drones, self driving cars and robotics as innovations in the physical world, directs investment through existing research and procurement authorities, and tells the Commerce Department to convene industry on robotics and drone supply chains. It sets no safety requirement.", "key_facts": [ "The plan says AI will enable a wide range of new innovations in the physical world: autonomous drones, self driving cars, robotics, and other inventions for which terminology does not yet exist.", "It directs investment through the Small Business Innovation Research program, CHIPS research and development, Title III of the Defense Production Act and other authorities.", "It directs Commerce, through NTIA, to convene industry and government stakeholders to identify supply chain challenges to American robotics and drone manufacturing." ], "figures": [], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "The federal posture is industrial, not regulatory: money and supply chain attention for American built robots, and no new duty on the maker. If you manufacture in the United States there are funding doors named in the plan. If you were waiting for a federal robot safety programme to emerge from it, this document does not contain one.", "sources": [ { "name": "The White House, America's AI Action Plan", "url": "https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-07-23" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0013", "PAG-2026-0012" ], "tags": [ "AI Action Plan", "robotics manufacturing", "United States", "industrial policy" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0012", "slug": "us-nist-robotics-measurement-science", "title": "The nearest thing to a US federal robot programme is a measurement science project, and it makes test methods, not rules", "kind": "program", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "US", "answer": "NIST runs a Measurement Science for Robotics and Autonomous Systems Program whose deliverables are performance metrics, information models, datasets, test methods and protocols. It covers performance, collaboration, agility, autonomy, safety and ease of implementation. It is voluntary infrastructure for industry and standards bodies, and it binds nobody.", "key_facts": [ "The program's objective is to develop and deploy measurement science that advances robotic system performance, collaboration, agility, autonomy, safety and ease of implementation.", "NIST states it will deliver performance metrics, information models, datasets, test methods and protocols to assess and assure key attributes of robotic systems.", "Six facets are investigated through a unified set of testbeds and scenarios developed in consultation with industry." ], "figures": [], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "If you need a defensible way to measure whether your robot does what you claim, this is the American source, and its test methods feed the consensus standards your customers will cite. It is also the place to put your own measurement needs on the record. What it will not give you is a certificate or a compliance route.", "sources": [ { "name": "NIST, Measurement Science for Robotics and Autonomous Systems Program", "url": "https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/measurement-science-robotics-and-autonomous-systems-program", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-15" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0011", "PAG-2026-0032" ], "tags": [ "NIST", "measurement science", "test methods", "United States" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0013", "slug": "us-no-federal-robot-statute", "title": "No United States federal statute governs robots as such, and the agencies say so in their own words", "kind": "law", "verdict": "absent", "jurisdiction": "US", "answer": "The federal government reaches robots sideways. OSHA has no robot standard and its inspectors are sent to private consensus standards and the general machine guarding rule. NHTSA regulates driverless vehicles one exemption at a time. The White House AI Action Plan treats robotics as manufacturing policy. Nothing in between binds a robot maker as a robot maker.", "key_facts": [ "OSHA's own manual points inspectors at private standards and at 29 CFR 1910.212, the general requirements for all machines.", "NHTSA's route for a vehicle without a driver is an exemption application under 49 U.S.C. 30113 and 49 CFR part 555, decided case by case.", "The AI Action Plan's robotics action is a supply chain convening led by the Commerce Department through NTIA, not a safety requirement." ], "figures": [], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "In the United States your obligations come from the sector you land in, not from robot law: occupational safety in a plant, vehicle law on a road, consumer product law in a home, sectoral rules in a hospital. Map your product to those regimes one at a time, and treat the consensus standards as the de facto requirement, because they are what an inspector, a plaintiff and a customer will all cite.", "sources": [ { "name": "OSHA Technical Manual, Section IV Chapter 4, Industrial Robot Systems", "url": "https://www.osha.gov/otm/section-4-safety-hazards/chapter-4", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-15" }, { "name": "Federal Register, AV Framework Updates and Request for Comments on Interim Guidance, NHTSA", "url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/31/2026-15483/av-framework-updates-and-request-for-comments-on-interim-guidance", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-07-31" }, { "name": "The White House, America's AI Action Plan", "url": "https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-07-23" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0009", "PAG-2026-0010", "PAG-2026-0011" ], "tags": [ "United States", "absent", "federal law", "robot regulation" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15", "search": "On 15 September 2026 the atlas read OSHA's Technical Manual chapter on industrial robots, which names ANSI and RIA R15.06 as the safety standard for robots and cites 29 CFR 1910.212 rather than any robot rule of OSHA's own; read NHTSA's Federal Register notice of 31 July 2026, which regulates automated vehicles through exemptions under 49 U.S.C. 30113 and a crash reporting order rather than a driving automation standard; and read the July 2025 AI Action Plan, whose only robotics action is a Commerce supply chain convening. congress.gov, the US Code search and the govinfo search refused scripted fetches from this machine, so no claim is made here about individual bills." }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0014", "slug": "uk-no-robot-statute", "title": "Britain has no Act with robot in its title, and the search that proves it is one line long", "kind": "law", "verdict": "absent", "jurisdiction": "UK", "answer": "A title search for robot across all United Kingdom legislation returns nothing. The only statute Britain has written for a machine that acts on its own is the Automated Vehicles Act 2024. A robot in a British factory is governed by health and safety law, supply of machinery regulations and product liability, none of which names it.", "key_facts": [ "legislation.gov.uk answers the title search for robot with: your title search for robot in the English language of legislation has returned no results.", "The Automated Vehicles Act 2024 is limited to mechanically propelled road vehicles designed to travel autonomously.", "Workplace robots in Britain are reached through general health and safety law and the supply of machinery regulations, which speak of machinery rather than robots." ], "figures": [], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "Do not look for a British robot rulebook, because there is not one. Your duties come from machinery supply law, from the employer's health and safety duty at the deployment site, and from product liability if something goes wrong. If your machine drives itself on a road, the Automated Vehicles Act is the exception, and it is a full authorisation regime.", "sources": [ { "name": "legislation.gov.uk, title search for robot across all legislation", "url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/all?title=robot", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-15" }, { "name": "legislation.gov.uk, Automated Vehicles Act 2024, contents", "url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/10/contents", "type": "primary", "date": "2024-05-20" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0015" ], "tags": [ "United Kingdom", "absent", "robot law", "health and safety" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15", "search": "On 15 September 2026 the atlas ran the legislation.gov.uk title search for robot across all legislation types, at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/all?title=robot, and the site answered that the title search for robot in the English language of legislation has returned no results. The atlas then confirmed that the Automated Vehicles Act 2024 is the one statute built around a machine driving itself, and that it covers vehicles only." }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0015", "slug": "uk-automated-vehicles-act-2024", "title": "Britain's one physical AI statute is about vehicles, and it makes an entity, not a driver, answer for the machine", "kind": "law", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "UK", "answer": "The Automated Vehicles Act 2024 builds an authorisation scheme around a self driving test: a vehicle qualifies if a feature lets it travel autonomously, safely and legally, with nobody monitoring for immediate intervention. An authorised self driving entity carries responsibility, and the Secretary of State must publish safety principles that Parliament approves.", "key_facts": [ "Section 1(5): a vehicle travels autonomously if it is controlled not by an individual but by equipment of the vehicle, and neither the vehicle nor its surroundings are being monitored by an individual with a view to immediate intervention.", "Section 2(2): the safety principles must secure that authorised automated vehicles achieve a level of safety equivalent to or higher than careful and competent human drivers, and that road safety in Great Britain is better as a result.", "Section 2(6): the statement of safety principles takes effect only if both Houses of Parliament resolve that it should.", "Part 3 chapter 2 creates statutory inspectors to investigate incidents involving authorised automated vehicles." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "Authorisation replaces type approval alone: a feature is authorised for defined locations and circumstances, and can be varied, suspended or withdrawn.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "The statute regulates behaviour and outcomes rather than the design of the model, and the yardstick is a careful and competent human driver.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "liability", "value": "An authorised self driving entity must exist and answer for the vehicle while the feature is engaged, which moves responsibility off the person in the seat.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "Incident investigation by statutory inspectors, with powers over persons, premises and road traffic, is written into the Act.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "If you put a driverless vehicle on a British road, the thing being licensed is your organisation as much as the vehicle: you need an authorised self driving entity, an authorisation for defined conditions, and evidence measured against the careful and competent human driver benchmark. Build the incident evidence pipeline early, because statutory inspectors can compel it.", "sources": [ { "name": "legislation.gov.uk, Automated Vehicles Act 2024, section 1", "url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/10/section/1/enacted", "type": "primary", "date": "2024-05-20" }, { "name": "legislation.gov.uk, Automated Vehicles Act 2024, section 2", "url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/10/section/2/enacted", "type": "primary", "date": "2024-05-20" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0016", "PAG-2026-0014" ], "tags": [ "Automated Vehicles Act", "United Kingdom", "self driving", "authorisation" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0016", "slug": "uk-law-commission-automated-vehicles", "title": "The British statute came from a law reform project, and that report is the closest thing to a rationale a regulator will read", "kind": "guidance", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "UK", "answer": "The Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission published a joint report on automated vehicles on 26 January 2022, after three consultations, 404 written responses and more than 350 meetings. Its recommendations on authorisation, in use regulation and responsibility became the shape of the Automated Vehicles Act 2024.", "key_facts": [ "The review was commissioned by the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles and began in 2018.", "Three consultation papers were published between November 2018 and December 2020 and drew 404 written responses.", "The joint report with recommendations for legal reform was published on 26 January 2022; the Automated Vehicles Act received royal assent in May 2024." ], "figures": [ { "label": "Written consultation responses received by the Law Commissions", "value": 404, "unit": "responses", "as_of": "2022-01-26", "source": 0 } ], "facets": [ { "key": "liability", "value": "The report's central move is to separate the user in charge from the entity answerable for driving, which the Act then enacts.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "The report frames the safety question as one of assurance and in use monitoring rather than of model design.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "When a British regulator asks why a rule reads as it does, this report is the answer, and it is public. Use it to predict how the authorisation scheme will be applied and where the discretion lies. It is also the model other countries copy when they write a driverless scheme, which makes it worth reading even outside Britain.", "sources": [ { "name": "Law Commission, Automated Vehicles project page", "url": "https://lawcom.gov.uk/project/automated-vehicles/", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-15" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0015" ], "tags": [ "Law Commission", "United Kingdom", "automated vehicles", "law reform" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0017", "slug": "de-dguv-information-209-074-industrial-robots", "title": "Germany's practical robot rule is an accident insurers' handbook, and it is the document an inspector reaches for", "kind": "guidance", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "DE", "answer": "The German statutory accident insurance association publishes DGUV Information 209-074, Industrieroboter, in an edition dated January 2015 and also in English as Industrial robots. It is not a statute; it is the practical guidance that German employers and inspectors use to apply machinery and occupational safety law to a robot cell.", "key_facts": [ "The DGUV publications catalogue lists DGUV Information 209-074 Industrieroboter with the edition marker 2015.01 and notes that it is available in further languages.", "The same catalogue entry lists an English version, DGUV Information 209-074 Industrial robots, with the same edition marker.", "A DGUV Information is guidance from the accident insurance institutions, not a legal instrument, and its authority comes from being the accepted state of practice." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "It applies machinery safety practice to the robot cell: separation, protective devices and the safe operating modes.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "It is written for the employer's duty toward the worker in and around the cell, which is where German enforcement actually lands.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "An edition from January 2015 addresses no learned controller, and nothing in the catalogue entry replaces it.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "In Germany the question at an inspection is whether you followed the accepted practice, and this handbook is that practice for robot cells. Read it alongside the current ISO parts rather than instead of them, because the edition on the shelf predates both the 2025 robot safety standards and every learned controller you might ship today.", "sources": [ { "name": "DGUV Publikationen, catalogue entry for DGUV Information 209-074", "url": "https://publikationen.dguv.de/search?sSearch=209-074", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-15" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0019", "PAG-2026-0001" ], "tags": [ "DGUV", "Germany", "industrial robots", "occupational safety" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0018", "slug": "jp-ordinance-industrial-safety-robots", "title": "Japan wrote robot rules into occupational safety law in the 1980s, and they still govern every industrial robot there", "kind": "law", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "JP", "answer": "Section 9 of the Ordinance on Industrial Safety and Health, made under the Industrial Safety and Health Act, governs industrial robots in three articles. Article 150-3 controls teaching work inside the operating range, article 150-4 requires fences or enclosures during operation, and article 150-5 requires the robot to be stopped and the start switch locked for inspection.", "key_facts": [ "Article 150-3 requires written procedures for teaching work inside the operating range, a way for the worker or a watcher to stop the robot immediately, and a sign preventing others from using the start switch.", "Article 150-4 requires fences, enclosures or equivalent measures where contact with a robot in operation could endanger a worker.", "Article 150-5 requires the robot to be stopped, the start switch locked and marked during inspection, repair, adjustment, cleaning or lubrication inside the operating range.", "The supplementary provisions date the robot section to the 1983 amendment, with parts of articles 150-3, 150-4 and 150-5 in force from 1 January 1984." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "The duty is on the employer operating the robot rather than on the manufacturer, and the required measures are physical and procedural.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "Teaching, inspection and maintenance work inside the operating range is the regulated moment, because that is where people are hurt.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "The text addresses unexpected operation and mistaken operation and says nothing about a controller that learns.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "Selling into a Japanese factory means your customer carries specific, old and enforceable duties: procedures for teaching, an immediate stop within reach, guarding during operation and a locked start switch for maintenance. Design your robot so those duties are easy to meet and document them in the manual, because the employer, not you, is the one inspected.", "sources": [ { "name": "e-Gov, Ordinance on Industrial Safety and Health, Ordinance of the Ministry of Labour No. 32 of 1972", "url": "https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/347M50002000032", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-15" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0019", "PAG-2026-0009" ], "tags": [ "Japan", "industrial robots", "occupational safety", "teaching work" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0019", "slug": "global-iso-10218-2025", "title": "The world's industrial robot safety standard was reissued in 2025, in two parts, for the robot and for the cell", "kind": "standard", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "GLOBAL", "answer": "ISO 10218-1:2025 and ISO 10218-2:2025 are the third and second editions of the industrial robot safety standard, both published in February 2025 by ISO technical committee 299. Part 1 treats the robot as partly completed machinery, part 2 covers integration of applications and cells, and part 2 runs to 223 pages.", "key_facts": [ "ISO 10218-1:2025 is edition 3, published 2025-02, 95 pages, at stage 60.60, from ISO technical committee 299.", "ISO 10218-2:2025 is edition 2, published 2025-02, 223 pages, and specifies requirements for the integration of industrial robot applications and industrial robot cells.", "Part 2 excludes underwater, law enforcement, military, airborne and space, medical, healthcare and service robot uses.", "ISO 10218-1 states that it does not apply to robots manufactured before the date of its publication." ], "figures": [ { "label": "Pages in ISO 10218-2:2025", "value": 223, "unit": "pages", "as_of": "2025-02-01", "source": 1 } ], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "This is the evidence a maker and an integrator produce for robot and cell safety, and the reference every national rule points at.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "The parts are written around deterministic safety functions and performance levels, not around a controller that keeps learning in service.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "Protective separation, stop functions and the safeguarded space are the mechanism by which workers stay out of harm.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "Your presumption of conformity, your customer's purchase order and your inspector's question all point at these two documents, and both were reissued in February 2025. If your safety file still cites the 2011 edition of part 1 or the 2011 edition of part 2, it is citing withdrawn text. Budget the gap analysis, because part 2 alone is 223 pages of integration requirements.", "sources": [ { "name": "ISO, ISO 10218-1:2025 Robotics, Safety requirements, Part 1: Industrial robots", "url": "https://www.iso.org/standard/73933.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-02-01" }, { "name": "ISO, ISO 10218-2:2025 Robotics, Safety requirements, Part 2: Industrial robot applications and robot cells", "url": "https://www.iso.org/standard/73934.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-02-01" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0020", "PAG-2026-0009", "PAG-2026-0001" ], "tags": [ "ISO 10218", "industrial robots", "safety standard", "ISO TC 299" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0020", "slug": "global-iso-ts-15066-collaborative", "title": "The collaborative robot document is a 2016 technical specification, and its replacement is still at proposal stage", "kind": "standard", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "GLOBAL", "answer": "ISO/TS 15066:2016 supplements the industrial robot standards with safety requirements for collaborative operation, including the biomechanical limits behind power and force limited applications. ISO marks it as a technical specification to be revised. Its successor, ISO/AWI 15066-1 on biomechanical thresholds and data, sits at the earliest working stage in committee 299.", "key_facts": [ "ISO/TS 15066:2016 was published 2016-02, is 33 pages, and is at stage 90.92, international standard to be revised.", "It specifies safety requirements for collaborative industrial robot systems and the work environment and supplements ISO 10218-1 and ISO 10218-2.", "It states that it does not apply to collaborative applications designed before its publication.", "The ISO TC 299 catalogue lists ISO/AWI 15066-1, Collaborative Safety, Physical contact with robots, Part 1: Biomechanical thresholds and data, at stage 20.00." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "It is the source of the pain and injury thresholds that let a robot work beside a person without a fence.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "The protection is a contact limit measured against human tissue, established by a risk assessment for the specific application.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "Nothing in the document addresses a robot that changes its motion policy through learning.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "Every fenceless cobot argument you make to a customer rests on a technical specification from 2016 that ISO itself has marked for revision, and on a risk assessment you perform for your own application. Do that assessment against measured contact data and keep it, and track the successor project, because the thresholds you are relying on are the part most likely to move.", "sources": [ { "name": "ISO, ISO/TS 15066:2016 Robots and robotic devices, Collaborative robots", "url": "https://www.iso.org/standard/62996.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2016-02-01" }, { "name": "ISO, ISO/TC 299 Robotics, standards and projects catalogue", "url": "https://www.iso.org/committee/5915511.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-15" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0019", "PAG-2026-0009" ], "tags": [ "ISO TS 15066", "collaborative robots", "biomechanical limits", "ISO TC 299" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0021", "slug": "global-iso-13482-personal-care-robots", "title": "The only safety standard written for robots that live with people is from 2014 and is marked for revision", "kind": "standard", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "GLOBAL", "answer": "ISO 13482:2014 covers personal care robots, the mobile servant, physical assistant and person carrier types. ISO lists it at stage 90.92, to be revised. Its own text admits that no exhaustive internationally recognised pain or injury data existed when it was published, which is the gap a humanoid in a home walks straight into.", "key_facts": [ "ISO 13482:2014 was published 2014-02, is 79 pages, and sits at stage 90.92, international standard to be revised.", "The standard is limited primarily to human care related hazards and also covers domestic animals or property as safety related objects.", "It states that for hazards related to impact no exhaustive and internationally recognised data, such as pain or injury limits, existed at the time of publication.", "It does not apply to robots manufactured before its publication date." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "It is the only published international safety standard aimed at robots that operate around people outside industry.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "Protection rests on hazard analysis for care tasks, with the impact limits admitted as incomplete in the text itself.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "A 2014 document written for programmed assistance says nothing about a general purpose learned policy.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "If you are putting a legged or mobile robot into a home, a ward or a shop, this is the standard your customer will ask for and it is twelve years old, marked for revision, and open about the missing injury data. Use it as the skeleton of your safety case, then add your own measured contact testing, because the standard does not supply the numbers you need.", "sources": [ { "name": "ISO, ISO 13482:2014 Robots and robotic devices, Safety requirements for personal care robots", "url": "https://www.iso.org/standard/53820.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2014-02-01" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0028", "PAG-2026-0030" ], "tags": [ "ISO 13482", "personal care robots", "service robots", "safety standard" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0022", "slug": "global-iso-3691-4-driverless-trucks", "title": "Autonomous mobile robots in a warehouse are governed as driverless industrial trucks, by name", "kind": "standard", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "GLOBAL", "answer": "ISO 3691-4:2023 sets safety requirements and verification for driverless industrial trucks and their systems, and its own examples include the automated guided vehicle, the autonomous mobile robot and the bot. It was published in June 2023, runs to 74 pages, sits with technical committee 110, and ISO marks it to be revised.", "key_facts": [ "ISO 3691-4:2023 is edition 2, published 2023-06, 74 pages, at stage 90.92, international standard to be revised.", "Its examples of driverless industrial trucks include automated guided vehicle, autonomous mobile robot, bots, automated guided cart, tunnel tugger and under cart.", "It covers trucks with automatic modes, trucks able to carry riders who are neither drivers nor operators, and trucks with additional manual modes.", "The standard sits under ISO technical committee 110 on industrial trucks, not the robotics committee, which is why robot buyers often miss it." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "It is the safety standard a warehouse AMR is actually judged against, covering the truck and its control, guidance and power system.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "Protective measures around pedestrians in shared aisles are the core of the document.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "Navigation autonomy is treated as a controlled function, and learned perception is not addressed.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "If you sell or deploy mobile robots in a warehouse, your standard lives in the industrial trucks committee and not in robotics, and calling your product an autonomous mobile robot does not move it. Check which edition your customer's specification names, because ISO has marked this one for revision and a new edition changes the acceptance tests you will be asked to pass.", "sources": [ { "name": "ISO, ISO 3691-4:2023 Industrial trucks, Safety requirements and verification, Part 4: Driverless industrial trucks and their systems", "url": "https://www.iso.org/standard/83545.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2023-06-01" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0019", "PAG-2026-0028" ], "tags": [ "ISO 3691-4", "autonomous mobile robots", "warehouse", "safety standard" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0023", "slug": "global-functional-safety-control-systems", "title": "Two functional safety standards decide whether a robot's stop is trustworthy, and both predate learned control", "kind": "standard", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "GLOBAL", "answer": "ISO 13849-1:2023 and IEC 62061:2021 are the machinery functional safety pair. ISO 13849-1 gives the methodology for safety related parts of control systems including software, in a fourth edition from April 2023. IEC 62061 sets requirements for safety related control systems in high and continuous demand mode and was extended to non electrical technologies.", "key_facts": [ "ISO 13849-1:2023 is edition 4, published 2023-04, 152 pages, from ISO technical committee 199, and covers the design and integration of safety related parts of control systems including software.", "ISO 13849-1 applies to high demand and continuous mode operation and does not apply to low demand mode, which it leaves to the IEC 61508 series.", "IEC 62061:2021 is edition 2.0, published 2021-03-22, 304 pages, from IEC technical committee 44, and a consolidated version with amendment 1 of 2024 exists.", "IEC 62061 states it is concerned only with functional safety requirements intended to reduce the risk of hazardous situations arising from the machine itself." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "These two documents decide the performance level or safety integrity level of the emergency stop, the speed limit and the protective separation.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "Both assume a specified function with a quantifiable failure rate, which is exactly what a learned policy does not give you.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "The safe part of your robot has to be the part these standards can assess, which in practice means the learned behaviour proposes and a deterministic, rated safety channel disposes. Architect that split deliberately: a monitored speed and separation function built to a performance level is provable, and a claim that the model itself is safe is not.", "sources": [ { "name": "ISO, ISO 13849-1:2023 Safety of machinery, Safety related parts of control systems, Part 1", "url": "https://www.iso.org/standard/73481.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2023-04-01" }, { "name": "IEC, IEC 62061:2021 Safety of machinery, Functional safety of safety related control systems", "url": "https://webstore.iec.ch/publication/59927", "type": "primary", "date": "2021-03-22" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0019", "PAG-2026-0032" ], "tags": [ "functional safety", "ISO 13849", "IEC 62061", "machinery" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0024", "slug": "global-iso-21448-sotif", "title": "The standard for harm with no broken part is SOTIF, written for road vehicles and borrowed by everyone else", "kind": "standard", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "GLOBAL", "answer": "ISO 21448:2022 addresses the safety of the intended functionality: unreasonable risk from functional insufficiencies or from foreseeable misuse, where nothing has failed. Published in June 2022 at 181 pages by the road vehicles committee, it is the closest published framework for a perception stack that is simply wrong about the world.", "key_facts": [ "ISO 21448:2022 is edition 1, published 2022-06, 181 pages, from ISO technical committee 22, and ISO marks it at stage 90.92, to be revised.", "It covers hazards caused by functional insufficiencies of specification or by performance insufficiencies in the implementation of electrical and electronic elements.", "It excludes faults covered by the ISO 26262 series, cybersecurity threats and deliberate actions that clearly violate intended use, which it treats as feature abuse.", "It gives guidance on design, verification and validation measures and on activities during the operation phase." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "It handles the case where every component works as designed and the system still creates a hazard.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "Perception and decision insufficiencies are the subject matter, which is why robotics teams outside automotive adopt it.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "liability", "value": "The document is a safety framework and settles nothing about who pays when the insufficiency causes harm.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "When your robot hurts someone and nothing broke, SOTIF is the vocabulary you will be asked to argue in: triggering conditions, functional insufficiencies, the known and unknown hazardous scenario quadrants, and the operation phase evidence. Adopt it early even if you do not build vehicles, because there is no equivalent published framework written for robots.", "sources": [ { "name": "ISO, ISO 21448:2022 Road vehicles, Safety of the intended functionality", "url": "https://www.iso.org/standard/77490.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2022-06-01" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0025", "PAG-2026-0032", "PAG-2026-0010" ], "tags": [ "SOTIF", "ISO 21448", "perception", "autonomous systems" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0025", "slug": "global-ul-4600-autonomous-products", "title": "UL 4600 is the one published standard that asks an autonomous product for a safety case", "kind": "standard", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "GLOBAL", "answer": "UL 4600, the Standard for Evaluation of Autonomous Products, is an active ANSI approved standard whose third edition was published on 17 March 2023. Instead of prescribing design, it requires a structured safety case with claims, arguments and evidence, which is the shape of argument a machine without a human supervisor has to make.", "key_facts": [ "The UL Standards catalogue lists UL 4600, Standard for Evaluation of Autonomous Products, as active, edition 3, with a published date of 17 March 2023 and ANSI approval the same day.", "UL states the standard calls for manufacturers to consider safety case scenarios so that autonomous trucks and cars can safely share the road.", "Earlier editions 1, 2 and 2-1 are listed in the same catalogue, with edition 2-1 also marked active." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "The unit of compliance is an argued safety case with evidence, not a checklist of design features.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "Machine learning components are addressed as claims to be supported rather than as a component with a failure rate.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "liability", "value": "A safety case is a document a court can read, which is why insurers ask for it, though the standard imposes no liability rule.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "If nobody supervises your machine, you will be asked how you know it is safe, and this is the published answer format. Building the safety case as you develop is cheaper than reconstructing it for a customer, an insurer or an exemption petition, and it is the only such framework with an ANSI approved edition on the shelf.", "sources": [ { "name": "UL Standards and Engagement, UL 4600 Standard for Evaluation of Autonomous Products", "url": "https://www.shopulstandards.com/ProductDetail.aspx?productId=UL4600", "type": "primary", "date": "2023-03-17" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0024", "PAG-2026-0032" ], "tags": [ "UL 4600", "safety case", "autonomous products", "standard" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0026", "slug": "global-ieee-7007-ontology", "title": "IEEE 7007 is an ontology for ethically driven robotics, and it is the only active standard of its kind", "kind": "standard", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "GLOBAL", "answer": "IEEE 7007-2021, the Ontological Standard for Ethically Driven Robotics and Automation Systems, is an active standard. It establishes ontologies with concepts, definitions, axioms and use cases for the robotics and automation domain. A follow on project, P7007.1, would extend the ontologies to risks from AI systems used inside robot control.", "key_facts": [ "IEEE lists IEEE 7007-2021 as an active standard: a set of ontologies with different abstraction levels containing concepts, definitions, axioms and use cases for ethically driven design.", "The same working group page lists active project P7007.1, an ontological standard for addressing risks in artificial intelligence systems for ethically aligned robotics and automated systems.", "P7007.1 covers software not used to control robots as well as software forming part of a robot control system." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "It supplies shared vocabulary for norms, responsibility and transparency in a robot, which is what audit and documentation need.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "It is not a safety standard and sets no protective measure, so it never substitutes for the ISO parts.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "The ontologies name the human roles and norms around a robot, which helps a policy but binds nobody.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "Use it where your problem is language rather than guarding: naming responsibilities, norms and transparency claims consistently across a product line and a policy. Do not present it to a customer as evidence of safety; it is an ontology, and the safety evidence still comes from the ISO and IEC documents.", "sources": [ { "name": "IEEE Standards Association, IEEE 7007-2021", "url": "https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/7007/7070/", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-15" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0027" ], "tags": [ "IEEE 7007", "ontology", "robot ethics", "standard" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0027", "slug": "global-iso-iec-42001-for-robot-makers", "title": "The AI management system standard is the one certificate a robot maker can actually hold today", "kind": "standard", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "GLOBAL", "answer": "ISO/IEC 42001:2023, published in December 2023 by the joint ISO and IEC subcommittee on artificial intelligence, specifies requirements for an AI management system. It is certifiable, which no robot safety standard for learned behaviour is, so it is how a maker shows governance over the model inside a machine.", "key_facts": [ "ISO/IEC 42001:2023 is edition 1, published 2023-12, 51 pages, at stage 60.60, from ISO and IEC joint technical committee 1 subcommittee 42.", "It is a management system standard, so conformity is assessed at the level of the organisation and its processes rather than the product.", "No published international standard certifies the safety of a learned robot controller, which is why makers reach for this one." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "Model lifecycle, impact assessment, data governance and human oversight become auditable organisational controls.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "It says nothing about guarding, stopping distance or contact limits, and never replaces the machinery standards.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 }, { "key": "data", "value": "Its controls reach the data a robot collects only through the organisation's own processes, not through a robot specific rule.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "When a buyer asks how you govern the AI in your robot, this is the answer with a certificate attached, and it maps cleanly onto the documentation the AI Act and the machinery route will want. Be precise in your marketing: it certifies your management system, not your robot, and saying otherwise is the fastest way to lose a procurement argument.", "sources": [ { "name": "ISO, ISO/IEC 42001:2023 Information technology, Artificial intelligence, Management system", "url": "https://www.iso.org/standard/81230.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2023-12-01" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0026", "PAG-2026-0002" ], "tags": [ "ISO IEC 42001", "AI management system", "certification", "governance" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0028", "slug": "global-iso-cd-25785-dynamically-stable", "title": "No published safety standard covers a legged humanoid, and the one that would is still a committee draft", "kind": "standard", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "GLOBAL", "answer": "The ISO robotics committee's own catalogue lists ISO/CD 25785-1, safety requirements for dynamically stable industrial mobile robots, legged, wheeled or other forms of locomotion, at committee draft stage 30.60. Until it is published, a walking robot in a workplace is assessed against standards written for arms, trucks and personal care robots.", "key_facts": [ "The ISO TC 299 catalogue lists ISO/CD 25785-1, Robotics, Safety requirements for dynamically stable industrial mobile robots, Part 1: Robots, at stage 30.60.", "The same catalogue lists ISO/WD 26058-1 on safety requirements for industrial mobile robots and ISO/CD 26264-1 on humanoid robot datasets, both under development.", "ISO technical committee 299 carries a working group dedicated to humanoid robot datasets, and its safety working groups cover industrial, service and mobile robots.", "A committee draft is not a standard and confers no presumption of conformity anywhere." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "The specific hazard of a machine that can fall over on a person has no published international standard of its own.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "A balance controller is usually learned, and no draft in the catalogue tells you how to evidence one.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "Bystander protection for a legged machine is being written now, in committee, and not yet published.", "verdict": "open", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "Anyone selling a humanoid today is assembling a safety case out of parts written for something else, and saying so plainly is more credible than implying a standard exists. Track this project, join the committee if humanoids are your business, and in the meantime document the fall hazard explicitly, because no standard will do it for you. For the data those machines record, see the Embodied AI Data Ledger.", "sources": [ { "name": "ISO, ISO/TC 299 Robotics, standards and projects under development", "url": "https://www.iso.org/committee/5915511.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-15" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0021", "PAG-2026-0022", "PAG-2026-0030" ], "tags": [ "humanoid robots", "ISO TC 299", "committee draft", "legged robots" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0029", "slug": "question-liability-for-a-learned-behaviour", "title": "Open question: who is liable when a behaviour the robot learned causes the harm?", "kind": "question", "verdict": "open", "jurisdiction": "GLOBAL", "answer": "A robot that acquired a behaviour after sale, from its own operation or from a fleet update, can injure someone without any component failing. The EU withdrew the directive written for that case, the revised product liability rules reach software without saying how learning is judged, and no other jurisdiction has answered it at all.", "key_facts": [ "The AI Liability Directive proposal, which would have eased proof for exactly this case, was withdrawn and published as withdrawn in the Official Journal on 6 October 2025.", "Directive (EU) 2024/2853 makes software a product, so the learned component is inside the product, while leaving defectiveness to be judged case by case.", "ISO 21448 gives a vocabulary for harm with no broken part, but it is a safety framework and allocates no liability." ], "figures": [], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "Nobody can tell you today how a court will treat a behaviour your robot taught itself, so the only defence you control is the record: what the model was at each release, what you tested, what the fleet reported and what you did about it. Build that record as a product feature rather than as a legal afterthought.", "sources": [ { "name": "EUR-Lex, Official Journal C/2025/5423, withdrawal of Commission proposals", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:C_202505423", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-10-06" }, { "name": "EUR-Lex, Directive (EU) 2024/2853 on liability for defective products", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32024L2853", "type": "primary", "date": "2024-11-18" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0005", "PAG-2026-0004", "PAG-2026-0024" ], "tags": [ "liability", "learned behaviour", "open question", "product liability" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0030", "slug": "question-humanoid-in-a-home", "title": "Open question: is a humanoid in a home a machine, a consumer product or a care robot?", "kind": "question", "verdict": "open", "jurisdiction": "EU", "answer": "Three regimes could claim the same machine. The Machinery Regulation treats it as machinery, the General Product Safety Regulation catches consumer products where no sectoral law covers the risk, and ISO 13482 was written for personal care robots and is marked for revision. No authority has said which governs a general purpose humanoid at home.", "key_facts": [ "The General Product Safety Regulation applies only where no specific Union law with the same objective regulates the safety of the product, and only to risks those rules do not cover.", "The Machinery Regulation applies to machinery and related products and carries the third party route for self evolving safety functions.", "ISO 13482:2014 covers personal care robots and states that no internationally recognised impact injury limits existed at publication." ], "figures": [], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "Until somebody rules, assume all three apply and build to the strictest reading: machinery conformity, consumer product safety including a working recall path, and a contact safety case with your own measured data. A maker who picks the most convenient regime and is later told to pick another has to rebuild the file after the product is in people's houses.", "sources": [ { "name": "EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2023/988 on general product safety", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32023R0988", "type": "primary", "date": "2023-05-23" }, { "name": "ISO, ISO 13482:2014 Safety requirements for personal care robots", "url": "https://www.iso.org/standard/53820.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2014-02-01" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0006", "PAG-2026-0021", "PAG-2026-0001" ], "tags": [ "humanoid robots", "consumer products", "open question", "European Union" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0031", "slug": "question-fleet-update-new-placing-on-the-market", "title": "Open question: is a fleet wide behaviour update a new placing on the market?", "kind": "question", "verdict": "open", "jurisdiction": "EU", "answer": "EU product law is built around the moment a product is placed on the market, and a robot fleet can change behaviour overnight by update. The Machinery Regulation treats substantial modification as a trigger, the AI Act speaks of significant change to the design, and no instrument says plainly when a model update makes the machine a new product.", "key_facts": [ "The Machinery Regulation applies to machinery placed on the market from 14 January 2027 and treats a substantially modified machine as a new product.", "As amended, AI Act Article 111(2) makes operators of pre existing high risk systems comply only if the systems are subject to significant changes in their designs after the date of application.", "Neither instrument states whether retraining or a policy update delivered over the air is such a change." ], "figures": [], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "Decide your own threshold before a regulator decides it for you: write down which classes of update you treat as a substantial modification, what re assessment each triggers, and how you record it. That policy is defensible even if the answer moves, and an update log with no policy behind it is not.", "sources": [ { "name": "EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 on machinery", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32023R1230", "type": "primary", "date": "2023-06-29" }, { "name": "EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 amending the AI Act", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32026R1744", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-07-24" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0001", "PAG-2026-0002" ], "tags": [ "software updates", "placing on the market", "open question", "European Union" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0032", "slug": "question-safety-case-for-a-learned-controller", "title": "Open question: how do you evidence a safety case for a controller that was learned rather than specified?", "kind": "question", "verdict": "open", "jurisdiction": "GLOBAL", "answer": "Machinery functional safety asks for a specified function with a quantified failure rate, which a learned policy does not provide. SOTIF supplies a vocabulary for insufficiency, UL 4600 supplies the shape of a safety case, and no published standard tells a robot maker what evidence is enough for a learned controller in a workplace.", "key_facts": [ "ISO 13849-1 and IEC 62061 assume a specified safety function with quantifiable reliability in high or continuous demand mode.", "ISO 21448 addresses functional insufficiencies without failure, and is written for road vehicles.", "UL 4600 requires a structured safety case for autonomous products and leaves the sufficiency of evidence to argument.", "The ISO robotics committee's relevant project for dynamically stable mobile robots is still a committee draft." ], "figures": [], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "Split the machine: a deterministic, rated safety channel you can certify, and a learned layer that can only propose within limits that channel enforces. Then write the safety case in the UL 4600 shape and the insufficiency analysis in the SOTIF vocabulary. That combination is the strongest evidence available today, and it is an argument, not a certificate.", "sources": [ { "name": "ISO, ISO 13849-1:2023 Safety related parts of control systems", "url": "https://www.iso.org/standard/73481.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2023-04-01" }, { "name": "ISO, ISO 21448:2022 Safety of the intended functionality", "url": "https://www.iso.org/standard/77490.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2022-06-01" }, { "name": "UL Standards and Engagement, UL 4600 Standard for Evaluation of Autonomous Products", "url": "https://www.shopulstandards.com/ProductDetail.aspx?productId=UL4600", "type": "primary", "date": "2023-03-17" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0023", "PAG-2026-0024", "PAG-2026-0025" ], "tags": [ "safety case", "learned control", "open question", "evidence" ], "date_added": "2026-09-15", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-15" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0033", "slug": "cn-miit-humanoid-guiding-opinions", "title": "China's humanoid robot policy is a 2023 MIIT document with dated milestones and a governance line inside it", "kind": "guidance", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "CN", "answer": "The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the Guiding Opinions on the Innovative Development of Humanoid Robots as document 2023 number 193, dated 20 October 2023 and published on 2 November 2023. Its own interpretation sets a 2025 milestone that includes batch production and exploring governance mechanisms, and a 2027 milestone of a safe and reliable supply chain and world advanced overall strength.", "key_facts": [ "The notice carries document number 工信部科〔2023〕193号, written 20 October 2023 and published 2 November 2023 by the MIIT science and technology department.", "MIIT's interpretation gives the 2025 milestone as breakthroughs in brain, cerebellum and limb technologies, batch production, demonstration applications, and exploring effective governance mechanisms and means.", "The 2027 milestone is a safe and reliable industrial and supply chain system and overall strength reaching world advanced levels.", "The document sets five task areas; the supporting capability area names a sound industry standards system, testing and pilot verification capacity, and stronger safety governance capacity.", "The humanoid brain is to be built on large AI models, with a cerebellum for motion control; the notice page carries the covering notice, and the interpretation carries the substance." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "Safety appears as a capacity to build, testing, pilot verification and safety governance, rather than as a requirement a maker must meet today.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 1 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "The document directs the humanoid brain to be developed on large AI models and the cerebellum on motion control algorithm libraries, so the learned layer is the policy's centre.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 1 }, { "key": "liability", "value": "Neither the notice nor the interpretation says who answers when a humanoid causes harm.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 1 }, { "key": "data", "value": "The interpretation names no rule on the recordings a humanoid makes; the data question is left to the standards work that followed.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 1 } ], "what_it_changes": "China set the direction three years before anyone else wrote a humanoid rule, and it named governance as something to be explored alongside production rather than after it. For a maker, this document is the reason Chinese standards work on humanoids is moving fast, and the reason the standards that emerge will be industrial policy instruments as much as safety documents. It binds nobody by itself.", "sources": [ { "name": "MIIT, notice issuing the Guiding Opinions on the Innovative Development of Humanoid Robots, 工信部科〔2023〕193号", "url": "https://wap.miit.gov.cn/jgsj/kjs/wjfb/art/2023/art_50316f76a9b1454b898c7bb2a5846b79.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2023-11-02" }, { "name": "MIIT science and technology department, interpretation of the Guiding Opinions", "url": "https://wap.miit.gov.cn/jgsj/kjs/gzdt/art/2023/art_7f54847cabfa4ed28f472a15a27f2965.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2023-11-02" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0034", "PAG-2026-0035", "PAG-2026-0037" ], "tags": [ "China", "MIIT", "humanoid robots", "industrial policy" ], "date_added": "2026-09-16", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-16" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0034", "slug": "cn-miit-tc8-standards-committee", "title": "China gave humanoid robots and embodied AI their own standards committee, with safety written into its remit", "kind": "standard", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "CN", "answer": "MIIT announcement 2025 number 44, written 25 December 2025 and published 31 December 2025, establishes the Humanoid Robot and Embodied Intelligence Standardization Technical Committee, numbered MIIT/TC8. Its remit covers basic and common technologies, key technologies, components, whole machines and systems, applications and safety. The first committee has 76 members, and its secretariat sits at the Chinese Institute of Electronics.", "key_facts": [ "The announcement is 中华人民共和国工业和信息化部公告（2025年第44号）, written 25 December 2025 and published 31 December 2025.", "The committee is numbered MIIT/TC8 and is responsible for formulating and revising industry standards for humanoid robots and embodied intelligence, safety included.", "The first committee is composed of 76 members and its secretariat is carried by the Chinese Institute of Electronics.", "This is an industry standards committee under the ministry; the national GB projects on humanoid robots run through the standards administration's platform." ], "figures": [ { "label": "Members of the first MIIT humanoid robot and embodied intelligence standards committee", "value": 76, "unit": "members", "as_of": "2025-12-31", "source": 0 } ], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "Safety is named in the committee's own remit, so Chinese humanoid safety documents will come from a body that also sets the product standards.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "Embodied intelligence is inside the committee's name, which puts the model and the body under one standards roof.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "data", "value": "The announcement names domains, not documents; what it requires of training recordings is not written in it.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "If you sell humanoids into China, this is the committee whose output will decide what a conforming machine looks like there, and it was stood up before any published humanoid safety standard existed. Track its work programme, and note that its scope pairs the AI and the machine, a pairing no other national standards body has made in one committee.", "sources": [ { "name": "MIIT, announcement 2025 number 44 establishing MIIT/TC8", "url": "https://wap.miit.gov.cn/jgsj/kjs/wjfb/art/2025/art_91588a03c1694803b04f6e7674ac973a.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-12-31" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0035", "PAG-2026-0033", "PAG-2026-0036" ], "tags": [ "China", "MIIT", "standards committee", "embodied intelligence" ], "date_added": "2026-09-16", "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "last_modified": "2026-09-16" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0035", "slug": "cn-humanoid-national-standards-in-drafting", "title": "China is drafting a five part humanoid robot safety standard, and the first robot control architecture standard took effect in 2026", "kind": "standard", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "CN", "answer": "The national standards platform run by the standards administration lists a five part humanoid robot safety requirements series in drafting: general safety, industrial, personal and household service, public service and special application. All five are at drafting stage. A search of published national standards for humanoid robot in the title returns zero. GB/T 47245-2026, the general architecture of intelligent control systems for robots, was issued on 27 February 2026 and took effect on 1 September 2026.", "key_facts": [ "Plan numbers 20261658-T-604, 20261657-T-604 and 20261653-T-604, issued 31 March 2026, cover general safety, the industrial field and personal and household service, all at drafting stage on 16 September 2026.", "Plan numbers 20262891-T-604 and 20262888-T-604, issued 22 May 2026, cover the public service field and special application fields, both at drafting stage.", "A published standards query on the platform for humanoid robot in the title returns a total of zero on 16 September 2026.", "GB/T 47245-2026, 机器人智能控制系统总体架构, is a recommended national standard issued 27 February 2026 and in force from 1 September 2026, status current.", "The plan query for humanoid robot returns 318 items on 16 September 2026, including datasets, test methods, controllers, an operating system and a data training ground specification." ], "figures": [ { "label": "Parts of the humanoid robot safety requirements national standard in drafting", "value": 5, "unit": "parts", "as_of": "2026-09-16", "source": 0 }, { "label": "Published Chinese national standards with humanoid robot in the title", "value": 0, "unit": "standards", "as_of": "2026-09-16", "source": 0 }, { "label": "Plan items returned by the platform for humanoid robot", "value": 318, "unit": "plan items", "as_of": "2026-09-16", "source": 0 } ], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "China is writing humanoid safety by application domain, one part per setting, which no international standard does; the published control architecture standard is a structure, not a safety requirement.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "people", "value": "Separate parts for personal and household service and for public service mean bystander safety is being written for the home and the street, not only the plant.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "The drafts are not public, so what they require of a learned controller cannot be read yet.", "verdict": "open", "source": 0 }, { "key": "data", "value": "A humanoid robot dataset series and a data training ground construction specification are in the same pipeline, so the recordings are being standardised alongside the machine.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "China will have humanoid safety standards before anyone else, split by where the robot works, and none is published yet. If that market matters to you, follow the drafting through the standards platform, because the first published part will become a de facto specification for suppliers and a template other countries read. GB/T 47245-2026 is already in force and is the architecture a Chinese integrator will expect your controller to describe itself against.", "sources": [ { "name": "National Public Service Platform for Standards Information, plan query for humanoid robot", "url": "https://std.samr.gov.cn/gb/gbProcessInfo", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-16" }, { "name": "National Public Service Platform for Standards Information, published standard query for 47245", "url": "https://std.samr.gov.cn/gb/search/gbQueryPage?searchText=47245&pageNumber=1&pageSize=10", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-16" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0034", "PAG-2026-0028", "PAG-2026-0036" ], "tags": [ "China", "national standards", "humanoid safety", "drafting", "GB/T 47245" ], "date_added": "2026-09-16", "last_verified": "2026-09-16", "last_modified": "2026-09-16" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0036", "slug": "cn-humanoid-embodied-ai-standard-system-2026", "title": "China announced a national standard system for humanoid robots and embodied AI, and the ministry's page could not be reached", "kind": "standard", "verdict": "reported", "jurisdiction": "CN", "answer": "Xinhua, carried by People's Daily Online on 2 March 2026, reports that China's first national standard system covering the whole industrial chain and lifecycle of humanoid robots and embodied AI was released on 28 February 2026 at the annual meeting of Humanoid Robots and Embodied Intelligence Standardization in Beijing. It has six components and was developed by over 120 organisations under the MIIT technical committee. The ministry's own text was not reached.", "key_facts": [ "Xinhua's Beijing dispatch of 1 March 2026 says the system was released on Saturday, which is 28 February 2026, at the HEIS annual meeting in Beijing.", "The six components named are basic commonality, brain like and intelligent computing, limbs and components, complete machines and systems, application, and safety and ethics.", "Xinhua says it was developed by over 120 research institutions, enterprises and industry users under the organisation of the MIIT technical committee for HEIS.", "Xinhua attributes to the committee that the brain like and intelligent computing standards regulate the entire data lifecycle and model training and deployment processes.", "MIIT pages returned 403 to three fetch paths on 16 September 2026, so no ministry document is cited and the verdict is reported." ], "figures": [ { "label": "Organisations Xinhua says took part in drafting the standard system", "value": 120, "unit": "organisations, reported as over", "as_of": "2026-03-02", "source": 0 } ], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "Safety and ethics is one of the six named components, so the system has a safety branch; what it requires is not in the report.", "verdict": "reported", "source": 0 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "The report names a brain like and intelligent computing branch that covers model training and deployment.", "verdict": "reported", "source": 0 }, { "key": "data", "value": "The report says the computing branch regulates the entire data lifecycle; the atlas has not read the text that says so.", "verdict": "reported", "source": 0 } ], "what_it_changes": "A standard system is a map of the standards a body intends to write, not a standard, and this one is known to the atlas only through state media. Treat it as the table of contents for the drafting series on the standards platform, and do not cite it to a customer as a requirement until the ministry text is read. When a MIIT page can be fetched, this record moves to verified.", "sources": [ { "name": "People's Daily Online, carrying Xinhua, China releases national standard system for humanoid robotics and embodied AI", "url": "https://en.people.cn/n3/2026/0302/c90000-20430143.html", "type": "secondary", "date": "2026-03-02" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0034", "PAG-2026-0035" ], "tags": [ "China", "standard system", "humanoid robots", "embodied AI", "reported" ], "date_added": "2026-09-16", "last_verified": "2026-09-16", "last_modified": "2026-09-16" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0037", "slug": "cn-local-embodied-ai-action-plans", "title": "Beijing and Shanghai each published an embodied AI industry plan, with targets and money attached", "kind": "program", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "CN", "answer": "Beijing issued an embodied AI innovation and industry action plan for 2025 to 2027, document 2025 number 36, on 28 February 2025. Shanghai issued its embodied AI industry implementation plan, document 2025 number 6, on 28 July 2025. Both set 2027 targets, both promise their own standards work, and Shanghai attaches project support of up to 30 percent of investment.", "key_facts": [ "The Beijing plan is 京科信发〔2025〕36号 from the municipal science and technology commission and Zhongguancun administration with the development and reform commission and the economy and information bureau, dated 28 February 2025.", "Beijing's 2027 targets include no fewer than 100 key technologies, no fewer than 50 core enterprises, no fewer than 50 mass produced products, and unified embodied data collection and test verification standards.", "The Shanghai plan is 沪府办规〔2025〕6号 issued by the municipal government general office on 28 July 2025 and published 6 August 2025.", "Shanghai's 2027 targets include no fewer than 20 core technology breakthroughs, no fewer than 4 incubators and a core industry scale above 50 billion yuan.", "Shanghai supports key technology projects at up to 30 percent of approved total investment and not more than 50 million yuan, and section 21 commits to exploring an embodied AI standard system around data, scenarios and pilot evaluation." ], "figures": [ { "label": "Shanghai support ceiling per key technology project, as the plan prints it", "value": 50000000, "unit": "yuan", "as_of": "2025-07-28", "source": 1 }, { "label": "Beijing 2027 target for core enterprises in the chain, as the plan prints it", "value": 50, "unit": "enterprises, no fewer than", "as_of": "2025-02-28", "source": 0 } ], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "Two Chinese city governments are funding the supply side of humanoids and writing their own data collection and test verification standards while national standards are still in drafting. For a maker, that is where pilot sites, test beds and customers are being created, and it is also where local technical requirements will appear first. Neither plan binds a maker; both decide who gets paid.", "sources": [ { "name": "Beijing Municipal Government, Embodied AI Science and Technology Innovation and Industry Cultivation Action Plan 2025 to 2027", "url": "https://www.beijing.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengcefagui/202503/t20250304_4024579.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-02-28" }, { "name": "Shanghai Municipal Government, Implementation Plan for the Development of the Embodied AI Industry", "url": "https://www.shanghai.gov.cn/gwk/search/content/f9cb53544505426d807055ca20bd69fc", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-07-28" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0033", "PAG-2026-0038" ], "tags": [ "China", "Beijing", "Shanghai", "embodied AI", "industrial policy" ], "date_added": "2026-09-16", "last_verified": "2026-09-16", "last_modified": "2026-09-16" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0038", "slug": "cn-government-work-report-2026", "title": "China's 2026 work report names embodied intelligence a future industry and prints robot output growth", "kind": "program", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "CN", "answer": "The Government Work Report delivered on 5 March 2026 lists embodied intelligence among the future industries the state will cultivate, alongside future energy, quantum technology, biomanufacturing, brain computer interfaces and 6G. Reviewing the previous year it records industrial robot output growth of 28 percent. The term humanoid robot does not appear in the report.", "key_facts": [ "The report calls for mechanisms for investment growth and risk sharing in future industries, and names embodied intelligence among them.", "In the review of the past year it states that output of industrial robots and integrated circuits grew 28 percent and 10.9 percent respectively.", "It states that research and application in artificial intelligence, biopharmaceuticals, robotics and quantum technology are among the world's leaders.", "The report uses robot, industrial robot and embodied intelligence; it does not use the term humanoid robot." ], "figures": [ { "label": "Growth in Chinese industrial robot output over the previous year, as the report prints it", "value": 28, "unit": "percent", "as_of": "2026-03-05", "source": 0 } ], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "Embodied AI is now named at the top of Chinese economic policy, which in practice means money, provincial follow through and standards capacity aimed at it. Read the printed output growth as the reason Chinese suppliers of arms, joints and whole machines will keep competing on price, and plan your component sourcing and your export exposure with that in view.", "sources": [ { "name": "State Council Gazette 2026 number 9, Government Work Report delivered 5 March 2026", "url": "https://www.gov.cn/gongbao/2026/issue_12646/202603/content_7064134.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-03-05" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0037", "PAG-2026-0033" ], "tags": [ "China", "government work report", "embodied intelligence", "industrial robots" ], "date_added": "2026-09-16", "last_verified": "2026-09-16", "last_modified": "2026-09-16" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0039", "slug": "kr-intelligent-robots-act", "title": "South Korea has had a robot statute since 2008, and its robot certification articles were deleted in 2016", "kind": "law", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "KR", "answer": "The Intelligent Robots Development and Distribution Promotion Act, Act No. 9014 of 28 March 2008, is a promotion law: it requires a five year basic plan, a robot industry policy council and support for distribution. Its quality certification articles 10 to 16 were deleted in 2016, so the Act no longer certifies robot safety. The version in force is dated 1 October 2025.", "key_facts": [ "The National Law Information Center shows the Act in force from 1 October 2025 as Act No. 21065, amended through another statute.", "Article 2 defines an intelligent robot as a mechanical device that perceives the external environment for itself, discerns circumstances, and moves voluntarily.", "Article 5(1): the Government shall establish a basic plan every five years for the development and distribution of intelligent robots.", "Articles 10 through 16, which carried intelligent robot quality certification, are recorded as deleted by Act No. 13744 of 6 January 2016.", "Article 18 lets the Government enact a charter on intelligent robot ethics for developers, manufacturers and users; Article 9 leaves the trade minister a policy power over robot quality." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "Since 2016 this Act certifies nothing; robot safety runs through general industrial standards and occupational safety law instead.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 1 }, { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "The statute is about promotion and distribution of intelligent robots and sets no requirement for the intelligence inside them.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 1 }, { "key": "people", "value": "The Act directs support toward distribution to socially disadvantaged people and toward an ethics charter, rather than toward protection from the machine.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 1 }, { "key": "liability", "value": "Nothing in the Act says who answers when an intelligent robot causes harm.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 1 } ], "what_it_changes": "Do not tell a Korean buyer, or your own board, that your robot is certified under Korea's robot act. That scheme is gone. What the Act gives you is a five year national plan to align with and a promotion apparatus to sell into, while safety evidence has to come from the general standards regime.", "sources": [ { "name": "National Law Information Center, 지능형 로봇 개발 및 보급 촉진법, in force text", "url": "https://www.law.go.kr/LSW//lsInfoP.do?lsiSeq=276607&chrClsCd=010202&urlMode=lsInfoP&efYd=20251001&ancYnChk=0", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-10-01" }, { "name": "Korea Legislation Research Institute, English translation of the Intelligent Robots Development and Distribution Promotion Act", "url": "https://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_mobile/viewer.do?hseq=39153&type=lawname&key=robot", "type": "secondary", "date": "2026-09-16" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0040", "PAG-2026-0041" ], "tags": [ "South Korea", "intelligent robots", "promotion law", "certification" ], "date_added": "2026-09-16", "last_verified": "2026-09-16", "last_modified": "2026-09-16" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0040", "slug": "kr-ai-framework-act", "title": "South Korea's AI framework law never says robot, and its safety duty is triggered by compute", "kind": "law", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "KR", "answer": "The Framework Act on the Development of Artificial Intelligence and the Creation of a Foundation for Trust, Act No. 20676 of 21 January 2025, entered into force one year after promulgation and has already been amended. The word robot does not appear in the English text. Its safety duty attaches to cumulative training compute above a threshold set by Presidential Decree, not to embodiment.", "key_facts": [ "Addenda Article 1: the Act enters into force one year after promulgation, with the digital medical device part of the high impact definition from 24 January 2026.", "The National Law Information Center shows the Act in force from 21 July 2026 as amended by Act No. 21311 of 20 January 2026.", "Article 32(1) attaches the safety duty to an AI system whose cumulative amount of computation for learning meets or exceeds a standard prescribed by Presidential Decree.", "High impact AI in Article 2 reaches major operation and management of means of transportation, traffic facilities and traffic systems, the nearest the Act comes to a machine that moves.", "Article 34 requires a high impact provider to assign human management and oversight and to keep documents that verify its safety measures; Article 31 requires advance notice that a product runs on high impact or generative AI." ], "figures": [], "facets": [ { "key": "ai_layer", "value": "Duties follow the model and the operator, with the trigger being training compute and high impact use rather than a physical body.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 1 }, { "key": "machine_safety", "value": "Nothing in the Act addresses the physical safety of a machine, which stays with occupational and product law.", "verdict": "absent", "source": 1 }, { "key": "people", "value": "The high impact categories reach life, physical safety and fundamental rights, so a transport system qualifies while a factory robot is not named.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 1 }, { "key": "data", "value": "Article 34 asks a high impact provider for an overview of the learning data used; it does not say who owns what a robot records.", "verdict": "verified", "source": 1 } ], "what_it_changes": "If you ship robots into Korea, read this Act as a duty on whoever provides the model, keyed to compute and to high impact uses, and not as a robot rule. Check whether your model crosses the decree threshold and whether your deployment touches transport, because those two answers decide your exposure. Physical safety obligations sit elsewhere.", "sources": [ { "name": "National Law Information Center, 인공지능 발전과 신뢰 기반 조성 등에 관한 기본법, in force text", "url": "https://www.law.go.kr/LSW//lsInfoP.do?lsiSeq=282791&chrClsCd=010202&urlMode=lsInfoP&efYd=20260721&ancYnChk=0", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-07-21" }, { "name": "Korea Legislation Research Institute, English translation of the Framework Act on Artificial Intelligence", "url": "https://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_mobile/viewer.do?hseq=71019&type=lawname&key=artificial", "type": "secondary", "date": "2026-09-16" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0039", "PAG-2026-0002" ], "tags": [ "South Korea", "AI Framework Act", "compute threshold", "high impact AI" ], "date_added": "2026-09-16", "last_verified": "2026-09-16", "last_modified": "2026-09-16" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0041", "slug": "kr-motir-humanoid-alliance", "title": "South Korea runs its humanoid push through a ministry led alliance, and the ministry names training data as a policy measure", "kind": "program", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "KR", "answer": "On 5 March 2026 the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources held an AI Robot M.AX Alliance meeting on humanoid robotics at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, with Hyundai Motor Company, robot makers, Seoul National University and two research institutes. The ministry's release lists the measures discussed: securing training data, domestic actuators and hands, field demonstrations, and regulatory improvement. It states an aim of becoming a top three player.", "key_facts": [ "The release is dated 5 March 2026 and names Hyundai Motor Company, AeiROBOT, Robros, Yuil Robotics, Tesollo, Higen RNM, Seoul National University, KEIT and KETI as participants.", "Measures discussed include securing and leveraging training data for humanoid robots, domestic capabilities in actuators and robotic hands, expanded field demonstrations and regulatory improvement.", "The deputy minister said the ministry will boost support for R&D and demonstration projects under the Alliance and work with the Presidential Council on National Artificial Intelligence Strategy on ecosystem measures.", "The release prints market figures attributed to a research firm; the atlas does not repeat them because the ministry did not measure them." ], "figures": [], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "Korea's humanoid programme is an alliance the ministry convenes, not a law, and its stated agenda puts training data and components ahead of safety rules. If you want a Korean partner or customer, this alliance is the room where those partnerships are being formed, and the regulatory improvement it names is aimed at adoption rather than at new duties on makers.", "sources": [ { "name": "Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources, press release, MOTIR Maps Out the Future of K-Humanoid Robotics", "url": "https://english.motir.go.kr/eng/article/EATCLdfa319ada/2521/view?pageIndex=1&bbsCdN=2", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-03-05" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0039", "PAG-2026-0040" ], "tags": [ "South Korea", "humanoid robots", "MOTIR", "alliance", "training data" ], "date_added": "2026-09-16", "last_verified": "2026-09-16", "last_modified": "2026-09-16" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0042", "slug": "jp-meti-nedo-physical-ai-foundation-model", "title": "Japan is funding a domestic foundation model for physical AI, and calls the on site data its winning path", "kind": "program", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "JP", "answer": "On 30 June 2026 the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and NEDO launched the Multimodal Foundation Model Development Project for AI Robots and Physical AI. Noetra Corp and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology were selected through a NEDO open call to lead a domestic model. The stated aim includes safeguarding the on site data that trains it. The project runs from fiscal 2026 through fiscal 2030.", "key_facts": [ "METI states that realizing physical AI by leveraging on site data generated across its broad range of industries is a winning path for Japan.", "A prerequisite named in the release is a domestic multimodal foundation model that can be used with peace of mind into the future while safeguarding on site data.", "NEDO ran the open call from 24 March through 22 April 2026; Noetra Corp and AIST were selected to lead the research and development.", "The release prints the project period as FY2026 through FY2030 and prints no budget figure, so the atlas prints none.", "The release also names Japan's low energy self sufficiency and a need to cut the power AI consumes as a reason for the project." ], "figures": [], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "Japan's bet is on the model and the data behind it rather than on new robot rules, and the state is buying a domestic option so that factory floor data does not have to leave the country to be useful. If you operate in Japan, the practical question soon is whose foundation model your robots run, and who holds the recordings that improved it.", "sources": [ { "name": "METI and NEDO, Multimodal Foundation Model Development Project for AI Robots and Physical AI Launched", "url": "https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2026/0630_004.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-06-30" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0018", "PAG-2026-0043" ], "tags": [ "Japan", "METI", "NEDO", "physical AI", "foundation model" ], "date_added": "2026-09-16", "last_verified": "2026-09-16", "last_modified": "2026-09-16" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0043", "slug": "jp-meti-ring-project", "title": "Japan's robot adoption programme is a regional network run by the ministry, aimed at labour shortage rather than at rules", "kind": "program", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "JP", "answer": "On 30 June 2025 METI announced the Robotics and Regional Initiative Networking Group, the RING Project, and held its inaugural meeting. Its stated purpose is to accelerate robot adoption to eliminate regional labour shortages across Japan, by building a nationwide support system with local municipalities, support organisations and robot related institutions and sharing know how. METI's robot industry page lists it as its most recent robot policy release.", "key_facts": [ "METI's release of 30 June 2025 says the RING Project aims to accelerate robot adoption projects to eliminate regional labor shortages across all Japan.", "The release says most small and medium sized enterprises have yet to create environments to enable the use of robots, which it names as the barrier the project addresses.", "The project will establish a nationwide system to support each region to adopt robots, develop an effective support system, and share know how of such support nationwide.", "METI's robot industry policy page, last updated 30 June 2025, lists the RING Project, a 2025 perspective on autonomous delivery robots and a 2024 revision of priority fields for care robots." ], "figures": [], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "Japan's robot policy in 2025 is adoption support for small firms, coordinated by the ministry through regions, and it changes no safety duty. For a vendor it is a channel: the regional support bodies the project stands up are where small Japanese buyers will be sent for advice, so being known to them matters more than any new certificate.", "sources": [ { "name": "METI, Robotics and Regional Initiative Networking Group (RING Project) Established to Solve Regional Labor Shortages", "url": "https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2025/0630_001.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-06-30" }, { "name": "METI, Robot Industry policy page", "url": "https://www.meti.go.jp/english/policy/mono_info_service/robot_industry/index.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-06-30" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0042", "PAG-2026-0018" ], "tags": [ "Japan", "METI", "robot adoption", "regional policy" ], "date_added": "2026-09-16", "last_verified": "2026-09-16", "last_modified": "2026-09-16" }, { "id": "PAG-2026-0044", "slug": "de-bmftr-robotics-action-plan", "title": "Germany's federal robotics programme is a research ministry action plan with a booster for embodied AI, and it funds rather than regulates", "kind": "program", "verdict": "verified", "jurisdiction": "DE", "answer": "The Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space publishes the Aktionsplan Robotikforschung, version 1.1, dated June 2025, with four action fields and a decentralised Robotics Institute Germany at its core. On 15 January 2026 the ministry's electronics research portal announced the KI-Robotikbooster, a flagship measure of the Hightech Agenda Deutschland with lead projects for multipurpose robots and showcases for embodied AI. Neither document imposes a duty on a maker.", "key_facts": [ "The action plan PDF carries the imprint Stand Juni 2025 and names four action fields: usable base technologies, bundling top research, skilled workers, and bringing intelligent robotics into application.", "The plan's contribution includes building a decentralised Robotics Institute Germany to bundle the leading robotics research sites, with shared research roadmaps and access to robotics infrastructure.", "The plan states Germany has the fourth highest robot density in the world and is the largest robotics market in Europe, and assigns industrial transfer to the economics ministry as complementary.", "The booster notice of 15 January 2026 quotes the agenda: lead projects for multipurpose robots, showcases for embodied AI, expanded research infrastructure, and testing and training centres.", "Three funding calls are planned under the booster: robotics research laboratories, AI based multipurpose robots in three to four lead projects, and transfer centres." ], "figures": [], "facets": [], "what_it_changes": "Germany's federal robotics money runs through research policy, not through a regulator, and the 2026 booster is aimed at embodied AI specifically. For a maker that means partnership with the Robotics Institute Germany sites and the coming lead projects is the way in, while the rules you must meet remain the Machinery Regulation, the DGUV handbooks and the harmonised standards.", "sources": [ { "name": "BMFTR, Aktionsplan Robotikforschung 1.1, dossier page", "url": "https://www.bmftr.bund.de/DE/Forschung/Schluesseltechnologien/Robotik/AktionsplanRobotik/dossier_aktionsplan_robotik.html", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-09-16" }, { "name": "BMFTR, Aktionsplan Robotikforschung, PDF, Stand Juni 2025", "url": "https://www.bmftr.bund.de/SharedDocs/Publikationen/DE/5/846858_Aktionsplan_Robotikforschung.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=7", "type": "primary", "date": "2025-06-01" }, { "name": "BMFTR electronics research portal, KI-Robotikbooster: Flaggschiff-Massnahme der Hightech Agenda Deutschland", "url": "https://www.elektronikforschung.de/service/aktuelles/ki-robotik-booster-2026", "type": "primary", "date": "2026-01-15" } ], "related_ids": [ "PAG-2026-0017", "PAG-2026-0001" ], "tags": [ "Germany", "BMFTR", "robotics research", "embodied AI", "funding" ], "date_added": "2026-09-16", "last_verified": "2026-09-16", "last_modified": "2026-09-16" } ] }