Introduction
A useful incident record starts with what happened, not with a guessed explanation. A fall can come from control, perception, hardware, a bad surface, an operator command or an intentional stress test. Video alone often cannot distinguish those causes.
For researchers and buyers, incident data becomes valuable when the robot, task, operating mode, environment, software version, consequence and recovery are recorded consistently.
Key facts
- Observation, suspected cause and confirmed root cause should be separate fields.
- A public demonstration fall cannot be converted into a fleet failure rate without an exposure denominator.
- Human intervention is useful evidence and should be logged even when no hardware damage occurs.
- Repeated incidents should be grouped by comparable task and operating conditions before trends are inferred.
What counts as an incident record?
Examples include a fall, collision, dropped object, uncontrolled contact, emergency stop, overheating event, network loss, actuator fault or human takeover. A near miss can also be useful when the event reveals a safety margin problem without causing damage.
Record the observed event first. Add a cause only when logs, inspection or a credible source supports it. Use unknown when the evidence does not identify the root cause.
Capture the operating context
Record model, date, site, task, control mode, payload, floor or terrain, environmental conditions, software version and whether the event occurred during research, competition, factory work or a public presentation.
Also record the exposure denominator when available: operating hours, task attempts, distance walked or number of cycles. Consider a hypothetical comparison of ten falls in ten stress tests and ten falls in 50,000 production cycles. These figures illustrate why exposure matters and do not describe observed robot results.
Separate severity from frequency
Severity describes consequence: no damage, dropped workpiece, human contact, component damage, lost production time or injury. Frequency describes how often an event occurs under a defined exposure. Combining both into one label hides useful information.
A low-frequency event with high consequence may demand a different control than a frequent low-cost recovery. Readers need both dimensions.
What evidence should accompany a public incident?
Keep the original source, full-length video when available, timestamp, official statement, independent reporting and later corrections. Short clips can omit the setup, operator action or recovery.
When a company explains an event, attribute the explanation to the company unless independent evidence confirms it. Preserve later updates rather than silently replacing the first record.
How to use incident data without misleading readers
Do not rank robot reliability from isolated viral clips. Use incidents to identify failure modes, test questions and missing safeguards. Reliability comparisons need matched operating exposure and comparable tasks.
A useful database can still include sparse records as long as each row makes its evidence level and missing information visible.
Limitations and missing information
- Public incident reporting for humanoids is incomplete and biased toward visible events.
- This page describes a reporting method and does not claim a complete global incident database.
- The cited standards and guidance do not provide a public humanoid accident census.
Conclusion
Incident reporting is most useful when another reader can reconstruct the context, see what is known, see what remains unknown and avoid turning one clip into a reliability claim.
Sources and methodology
The page uses safety, reliability and cyber-response sources as reporting context. It does not infer incident counts or causes from those documents.
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