Abstract
In human–robot collaborative assembly tasks, it is necessary to properly balance skills to maximize productivity. Human operators can contribute with their abilities in dexterous manipulation, reasoning and problem solving, but a bounded workload (cognitive, physical, and timing) should be assigned for the task. Collaborative robots can provide accurate, quick and precise physical work skills, but they have constrained cognitive interaction capacity and low dexterous ability. In this work, an experimental setup is introduced in the form of a laboratory case study in which the task performance of the human–robot team and the mental workload of the humans are analyzed for an assembly task. We demonstrate that an operator working on a main high-demanding cognitive task can also comply with a secondary task (assembly) mainly developed for a robot asking for some cognitive and dexterous human capacities producing a very low impact on the primary task. In this form, skills are well balanced, and the operator is satisfied with the working conditions.
Highlights
In the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, known as the Industry 4.0 paradigm, collaborative and autonomous robots are emerging
Six out of twelve participants perceived that the mental workload of the task Tower of Hanoi with 5 disks (TOH5) was high
Eight of twelve participants perceived that the mental workload of the main and secondary tasks TOH5 + Collaborative Assembly (CA) was high
Summary
In the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, known as the Industry 4.0 paradigm, collaborative and autonomous robots are emerging. A key element in this transformation to Industry 4.0 is the emphasis on a humancentered approach and full automation This human-based transformation implies a paradigm shift from independent automated and human activities towards a humanautomation symbiosis characterized by the cooperation of machines with humans in workplaces, which are designed not to replace (eventually, overcome) the skills and abilities of humans, but rather to co-exist and assist humans in increasing human well-being and production performance [3]. In recent reports, such as the Good Work Charter of the European Robotics Industry [4], fusion skills are defined as an interesting challenge: skills that draw on the fusion of humans and robots within a business process to create better outcomes than working independently
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