Designing an AR interface to improve trust in Human-Robots collaboration

In a global, e-commerce marketplace, product customisation is driven towards manufacturing flexibility. Conventional caged robots are designed for high volume and low mix production cannot always comply with the increasing low volume and high customisation requirements. In this scenario, the interest in collaborative robots is growing. A critical aspect of Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) is human trust in robots. This research focuses on increasing the human confidence and trust in robots by designing an Augmented Reality (AR) interface for HRC. The variable affecting the trust involved in HRC have been estimated. These have been utilised for designing the AR-HRC. The proposed design aims to provide situational awareness and spatial dialog. The AR-HRC developed has been tested on 15 participants which have performed a “pick-and-place” task. The results show that the utilisation of AR in the proposed scenario positively affects the human trust in robot. The human-robot collaboration enhanced by AR are more natural and effective. The trust has been measured through an empirical psychometric method also presented in this paper.

[1]  Ziyun Ding,et al.  Constraints analysis and evaluation of manual assembly , 2013 .

[2]  Brian Peacock,et al.  Cobots for the automobile assembly line , 1999, Proceedings 1999 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.99CH36288C).

[3]  Rainer Bischoff,et al.  Perspectives on augmented reality based human-robot interaction with industrial robots , 2004, 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37566).

[4]  J. Geoffrey Chase,et al.  Human-Robot Collaboration: A Literature Review and Augmented Reality Approach in Design , 2008 .

[5]  Nils Andersson,et al.  AR-Enhanced Human-Robot-Interaction - Methodologies, Algorithms, Tools , 2016 .

[6]  John Ahmet Erkoyuncu,et al.  A systematic review of augmented reality applications in maintenance , 2018 .

[7]  Raja Parasuraman,et al.  Humans and Automation: Use, Misuse, Disuse, Abuse , 1997, Hum. Factors.

[8]  Antonio Bicchi,et al.  An atlas of physical human-robot interaction , 2008 .

[9]  Philip Webb,et al.  Applying a Concept for Robot-Human Cooperation to Aerospace Equipping Processes , 2011 .

[10]  Andrea Maria Zanchettin,et al.  Acceptability of robotic manipulators in shared working environments through human-like redundancy resolution. , 2013, Applied ergonomics.

[11]  Alexander Verl,et al.  Cooperation of human and machines in assembly lines , 2009 .

[12]  Ewart de Visser,et al.  Measurement of trust in human-robot collaboration , 2007, 2007 International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems.

[13]  Andrew Y. C. Nee,et al.  Augmented reality applications in manufacturing: a survey , 2008 .

[14]  Björn Matthias,et al.  Safety of Industrial Robots: From Conventional to Collaborative Applications , 2012, ROBOTIK.