Human-robot Collaboration Demonstrator Combining Speech Recognition and Haptic Control

Abstract

In recent years human-robot collaboration has been an important topic in manufacturing industries. By introducing robots into the same working cell as humans, the advantages of both humans and robots can be utilized. A robot can handle heavy lifting, repetitive and high accuracy tasks while a human can handle tasks that require the flexibility of humans. If a worker is to collaborate with a robot it is important to have an intuitive way of communicating with the robot. Currently, the way of interacting with a robot is through a teaching pendant, where the robot is controlled using buttons or a joystick. However, speech and touch are two communication methods natural to humans, where speech recognition and haptic control technologies can be used to interpret these communication methods. These technologies have been heavily researched in several research areas, including human-robot interaction. However, research of combining these two technologies to achieve a more natural communication in industrial human-robot collaboration is limited. A demonstrator has thus been developed which includes both speech recognition and haptic control technologies to control a collaborative robot from Universal Robots. This demonstrator will function as an experimental platform to further research on how the speech recognition and haptic control can be used in human-robot collaboration. The demonstrator has proven that the two technologies can be integrated with a collaborative industrial robot, where the human and the robot collaborate to assemble a simple car model. The demonstrator has been used in public appearances and a pilot study, which have contributed in further improvements of the demonstrator. Further research will focus on making the communication more intuitive for the human and the demonstrator will be used as the platform for continued research.