Robotics Consulting

Capabilities

• Hardware Performance Evaluations

  Exponent designs custom performance evaluations tailored to robotics — addressing aspects like balance and gait stability, joint durability, actuator loading, haptic interaction, battery and thermal limits, drop and impact resistance, and sensor reliability. We assess risks at both system and component levels, contextualize evolving robotics standards, and develop targeted test methods for novel architectures, supporting safe, reliable human-robot interaction from prototype through deployment.

• Human Factors Evaluations

  As robots enter dynamic, human-populated environments, risk extends beyond mechanical and electrical hazards to human behavior and perception. Because people respond differently to robotic systems than to traditional machinery, human factors analysis is essential, both for safety and to empower intuitive, favorable interactions.

  Exponent evaluates human-robot interaction risks across the lifecycle — assessing operator and bystander behavior, trust and complacency, conducting task and use-related risk analyses, running human-in-the-loop studies, supporting standards interpretation and compliance, and providing incident investigation and litigation support. We also conduct user studies to understand human and robot behavior, and how they impact each other.

• AI Consulting

  As emerging capabilities allow AI-enabled robots to act in the physical world, they also bring new risks and responsibilities. Exponent matches your specific needs to the most appropriate methodologies, helping you achieve the right balance between capability, consistency, and security. Beyond methodology selection, we design and construct both physical and simulated environments, purpose-built for generating the training data your systems require. 

  Whether capturing data from live robot demonstrations, human or environmental movements, or synthetic scenarios, we employ diverse capture modalities to feed reinforcement learning and other training approaches. Exponent also assists with root cause analysis when AI outputs yield unexpected behavior, teasing out the decision process leading to unpredicted or even unsafe robot behavior.

  Our expertise extends to designing robust evaluation metrics, conducting user acceptance testing, and embedding security considerations throughout every stage of development — empowering validation, trustworthiness, and deployment-ready robotics solutions.

• Privacy & Cybersecurity Consulting

  Robots rely on sensors to collect data about people, objects, and their surroundings as they operate across a wide range of environments. How that data is processed, transmitted, stored, and preserved can affect both real-time functionality and the ability to review incidents or system behavior after the fact. These considerations also introduce important privacy and security implications, particularly when robots operate near users or handle sensitive information. Our cybersecurity experts support system integrity and help build user trust by engineering security and privacy protections into robotic systems from the start. Our teams:

  • Assess cybersecurity and privacy risks across your entire robot, including its connectivity and cloud backends
  • Evaluate potential attack paths and consequences, including physical outcomes
  • Align data handling with emerging regulations and best practices

• Impact, Stability & Physical Safety

  While a forceful collision between a robot and a human is rarely intended, risk assessments often include worst case scenarios such as a sensor failure. To assist with design choices like material stiffness and to understand injury potential, Exponent assesses risks related to potential robot instability, collisions, falls, loss of energy, and other hazards (e.g. pinch or sharp edge). 

  Our capabilities include failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), impact testing with instrumented anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs), drop impact testing, computational simulations (Finite Element Analysis, Multibody Dynamics), biological tissue testing, and standards-based testing.

  We also develop custom methods and deliver recommendations suited to your product, application, and use environment. Human-robot impact assessments can be tailored to the use case and design of any robot and interpreted within the context of injury potential and relevant standards.

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• Battery & Electrical Risk Assessments

  Many robotic systems combine a need for significant energy availability with unique form factors. Battery performance is critical for safety and reliability, particularly in robots working around people, pets, and possessions. We provide in-depth analysis of battery reliability, thermal runaway propagation mitigation, abuse tolerance, and fire and other electrical risks, such as wiring or electromagnetic vulnerabilities.

• Environmental & Indirect Hazard Evaluations

  OSHA's list of industrial robotics-related hazards includes hazards that arise indirectly due to the robot's impact on its local environment, such as excessive exposure to heat, chemicals, radiation, and noise. Exponent develops custom testing strategies to help you analyze environmental hazards that come from the use of your robot, including LED and laser hazard testing, audible noise and ultrasound emission safety, thermal hazard simulation and testing, and more. Our evaluations include standards-based and custom evaluations, including experimental testing, simulations, and user studies.