Physically Assistive robots (PAR) are construed as robots that assist humans by performing physical tasks and activities. The legal definition of PAR does not emanate from a legislation, but instead from ISO 13482:2014 (Standard on Safety requirements for personal care robots), which categorises PAR as one type of ‘personal care robots’. 

However, when ISO 13482:2014 has been analysed from the perspective of lower limb exoskeletons (which is one type of PAR), several dissonances in the standard were noticed (Fosch-Villaronga et. al., 2023). These dissonances include issues in the concepts and scope of ISO 13482:2014, and in certain hazards not being adequately addressed by ISO 13482:2014. Research has also noted that ISO 13482:2014 overlooks certain gender and sex considerations in exoskeleton design, which can affect user safety (Fosch-Villaronga & Drukarch, 2023). 

Therefore, the present project shall focus on analysing PAR and the regulatory regime governing it (including but not limited to ISO 13482:2014), in order to understand potential regulatory gaps and to address them. The project aims to use scientific experimentation to examine regulatory dissonances so that policy relevant knowledge can be delivered to the various stakeholders associated with PAR. Thus, the project focuses on using science for developing robotics policy so that PAR are more ‘SAFE and SOUND’ in the future.