Robot Design with Sustainability-Impact-Based Requirements

In the design of complex mechatronic products such as robots, requirements are necessary to specify functions and track surrounding conditions, interfaces, stakeholder needs and overall objectives. These are predominantly based on the performance in terms of function, value and cost. It is well established that each product has impacts on the environment, society and economy throughout its life cycle and thus on sustainability. However, these impacts are in their entirety not accounted for by performance-based requirements. Therefore, this paper explores the use of sustainability-impact-based requirements along the early development phase of an urban service robot. On the basis of the case study the paper attempts to characterize sustainability-impact-based requirements and explain their role in robot design. It will also describe problems arising due to this process and method.