Human Human Vs Human Robot Collaboration

This broad overview for graduate students introduces multidisciplinary topics from robotics to sociology which are needed to understand the area.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Engineering - Industrial Engineering and Management, grade: 1,0, Vienna University of Technology, language: English, abstract: The research question of this thesis is: What relevant factors exist that enables humans and robots to collaborate most successfully to ensure optimal process-based workflows? Human-robot collaboration is a fairly new field of research, and for this reason, there has been barely shed light upon this topic up to today. Thus, the purpose of this work is to investigate and analyze which factors have an impact on the collaborative work of humans. Subsequently, based on this analysis of the relevant parameters, implications can be made for human-robot collaborations to ensure optimal work settings to facilitate effective teaming. The development of modern industrial robots is advancing year by year. Currently robots are more precise, faster and more powerful than ever before. However, despite these advancements, it is still unlikely that robots will reach the dexterity and intelligence of humans anytime soon. Therefore, at least for the foreseeable future, humans remain irreplaceable in many assembly operations. Still, this does not imply that humans and robots cannot benefit each other. On the contrary, combining the strengths of each individual creates new opportunities for collaboration and collaborative work. Robots exhibit high precision and repeatability, can handle heavy loads and operate without performance deterioration, even in difficult or dangerous environments. However, robot control systems quickly reach their limits in recognizing and handling unpredictable situations and uncertainties in their environment, which are normally no problem for humans. This is mainly due to the ability of humans to tackle unexpected obstacles, their awareness of a much larger part of the environment than formally declared and lastly humans show more dexterity in complex or sensitive tasks. Despite that humans are more prone to error, stress or fatigue, and their employment underlies strict health and safety regulations. Robots that interact with human beings are called collaborative robots or cobots for short. The goal of this very human-robot collaboration is not to replace the human but rather to create opportunities for humans and robots to work together towards a common aim by mutually increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of their team performance. This, for example, can be achieved by employing robots in sectors where manual labor is predominant.

This book presents state-of-the-art research, challenges and solutions in the area of human–robot collaboration (HRC) in manufacturing. It enables readers to better understand the dynamic behaviour of manufacturing processes, and gives more insight into on-demand adaptive control techniques for industrial robots. With increasing complexity and dynamism in today’s manufacturing practice, more precise, robust and practical approaches are needed to support real-time shop-floor operations. This book presents a collection of recent developments and innovations in this area, relying on a wide range of research efforts. The book is divided into five parts. The first part presents a broad-based review of the key areas of HRC, establishing a common ground of understanding in key aspects. Subsequent chapters focus on selected areas of HRC subject to intense recent interest. The second part discusses human safety within HRC. The third, fourth and fifth parts provide in-depth views of relevant methodologies and algorithms. Discussing dynamic planning and monitoring, adaptive control and multi-modal decision making, the latter parts facilitate a better understanding of HRC in real situations. The balance between scope and depth, and theory and applications, means this book appeals to a wide readership, including academic researchers, graduate students, practicing engineers, and those within a variety of roles in manufacturing sectors.

Human–Robot Interaction (HRI) considers how people can interact with robots in order to enable robots to best interact with people. HRI presents many challenges with solutions requiring a unique combination of skills from many fields, including computer science, artificial intelligence, social sciences, ethology and engineering. We have specifically aimed this work to appeal to such a multi-disciplinary audience. This volume presents new and exciting material from HRI researchers who discuss research at the frontiers of HRI. The chapters address the human aspects of interaction, such as how a robot may understand, provide feedback and act as a social being in interaction with a human, to experimental studies and field implementations of human–robot collaboration ranging from joint action, robots practically and safely helping people in real world situations, robots helping people via rehabilitation and robots acquiring concepts from communication. This volume reflects current trends in this exciting research field.

This book provides an overview of recent research developments in the automation and control of robotic systems that collaborate with humans. A measure of human collaboration being necessary for the optimal operation of any robotic system, the contributors exploit a broad selection of such systems to demonstrate the importance of the subject, particularly where the environment is prone to uncertainty or complexity. They show how such human strengths as high-level decision-making, flexibility, and dexterity can be combined with robotic precision, and ability to perform task repetitively or in a dangerous environment. The book focuses on quantitative methods and control design for guaranteed robot performance and balanced human experience from both physical human-robot interaction and social human-robot interaction. Its contributions develop and expand upon material presented at various international conferences. They are organized into three parts covering: one-human–one-robot collaboration; one-human–multiple-robot collaboration; and human–swarm collaboration. Individual topic areas include resource optimization (human and robotic), safety in collaboration, human trust in robot and decision-making when collaborating with robots, abstraction of swarm systems to make them suitable for human control, modeling and control of internal force interactions for collaborative manipulation, and the sharing of control between human and automated systems, etc. Control and decision-making algorithms feature prominently in the text, importantly within the context of human factors and the constraints they impose. Applications such as assistive technology, driverless vehicles, cooperative mobile robots, manufacturing robots and swarm robots are considered. Illustrative figures and tables are provided throughout the book. Researchers and students working in controls, and the interaction of humans and robots will learn new methods for human–robot collaboration from this book and will find the cutting edge of the subject described in depth.

This book offers the first comprehensive yet critical overview of methods used to evaluate interaction between humans and social robots. It reviews commonly used evaluation methods, and shows that they are not always suitable for this purpose. Using representative case studies, the book identifies good and bad practices for evaluating human-robot interactions and proposes new standardized processes as well as recommendations, carefully developed on the basis of intensive discussions between specialists in various HRI-related disciplines, e.g. psychology, ethology, ergonomics, sociology, ethnography, robotics, and computer science. The book is the result of a close, long-standing collaboration between the editors and the invited contributors, including, but not limited to, their inspiring discussions at the workshop on Evaluation Methods Standardization for Human-Robot Interaction (EMSHRI), which have been organized yearly since 2015. By highlighting and weighing good and bad practices in evaluation design for HRI, the book will stimulate the scientific community to search for better solutions, take advantages of interdisciplinary collaborations, and encourage the development of new standards to accommodate the growing presence of robots in the day-to-day and social lives of human beings.

Cognitive Computing for Human-Robot Interaction: Principles and Practices explores the efforts that should ultimately enable society to take advantage of the often-heralded potential of robots to provide economical and sustainable computing applications. This book discusses each of these applications, presents working implementations, and combines coherent and original deliberative architecture for human–robot interactions (HRI). Supported by experimental results, it shows how explicit knowledge management promises to be instrumental in building richer and more natural HRI, by pushing for pervasive, human-level semantics within the robot's deliberative system for sustainable computing applications. This book will be of special interest to academics, postgraduate students, and researchers working in the area of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Key features: Introduces several new contributions to the representation and management of humans in autonomous robotic systems; Explores the potential of cognitive computing, robots, and HRI to generate a deeper understanding and to provide a better contribution from robots to society; Engages with the potential repercussions of cognitive computing and HRI in the real world. Introduces several new contributions to the representation and management of humans in an autonomous robotic system Explores cognitive computing, robots and HRI, presenting a more in-depth understanding to make robots better for society Gives a challenging approach to those several repercussions of cognitive computing and HRI in the actual global scenario

Trust in Human-Robot Interaction addresses the gamut of factors that influence trust of robotic systems. The book presents the theory, fundamentals, techniques and diverse applications of the behavioral, cognitive and neural mechanisms of trust in human-robot interaction, covering topics like individual differences, transparency, communication, physical design, privacy and ethics. Presents a repository of the open questions and challenges in trust in HRI Includes contributions from many disciplines participating in HRI research, including psychology, neuroscience, sociology, engineering and computer science Examines human information processing as a foundation for understanding HRI Details the methods and techniques used to test and quantify trust in HRI