10114028Scoping a Modern Framework to Guide the Regulatory Science for Smart Machines, Robotics and Autonomous Systems.ClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKThis project is a direct response to a priority recommendation made by The UK Cross-Sector RAS Development Task Force, an initiative funded by the UK-RAS university network that brought together a broad cross-section of public and private organisations currently investigating or investing in smart machines, robotics and autonomous systems (RAS). It engages with the influencers needed to establish a mandate for a UK Cross-Sector Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) Regulations, Standards and Ethics Committee, able to offer key contributions that help shape a modern UK regulatory landscape and set out priorities for supporting the development of cross-sector compliance and assessment frameworks and supporting resources. The approach is to coordinate and build on the knowledge of existing working groups, bringing together a multi-sector forum of regulators, researchers and innovators, public infrastructure organisations and government agencies that can both contribute to and advance the collective understanding of developing knowledge and best practice. This facilitates critical discussion into specific opportunities identified by the community of over 100 participants that contributed to a unique assessment of deployment journeys conducted by the Task Force including: \*Collating experience and documenting provenance around changing risk profiles, product safety cases, validation and reliability data, and overall approaches to progressing through technology readiness assessments. \*Documenting transferable best practices and setting out clear frameworks for liability and quality assurance for compliance and assurance requirements covering a range of regulations relating to health and safety, employment law, data and privacy protection, machine regulations, ethics and environmental protection. \*Harmonising regulatory guidance and language, the interpretation of standards, including common machine standards, PUWER, and other relevant regulations by articulating the complexities, including overlap and conflicting requirements currently emerging across disparate sector initiatives. \*Creating a repository of common risks and experience of testing and verifying mitigation based on a requirements analysis that identifies the problems and solutions emerging within current RAS implementations, particularly for public infrastructure investments. \*Developing methodology and specifications for sandboxed testing and verification and implementing a sample environment as a cross-sector resource to test regulatory measures. \*Evaluating the ethical implications of cross-sector deployment of RAS in the public environment to support a collaborative approach to the development of trust. Anticipated outputs include the articulation of structural requirements for the development of a RAS deployment framework, capacity map and underlying tools and knowledge bases alongside the broad cross-organisational commitment needed for their curation.