Survey on human–robot collaboration in industrial settings: Safety, intuitive interfaces and applications

Easy-to-use collaborative robotics solutions, where human workers and robots share their skills, are entering the market, thus becoming the new frontier in industrial robotics. They allow to combine the advantages of robots, which enjoy high levels of accuracy, speed and repeatability, with the flex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Mechatronics (Oxford) Vol. 55; pp. 248 - 266
Main Authors: Villani, Valeria, Pini, Fabio, Leali, Francesco, Secchi, Cristian
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.11.2018
Subjects:
Collaborative robots
Human–robot collaboration
Industrial applications
Intuitive robot programming
Safety
User interfaces
User interfaces
Intuitive robot programming
Industrial applications
Safety
Human–robot collaboration
Collaborative robots
ISSN:0957-4158, 1873-4006
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Easy-to-use collaborative robotics solutions, where human workers and robots share their skills, are entering the market, thus becoming the new frontier in industrial robotics. They allow to combine the advantages of robots, which enjoy high levels of accuracy, speed and repeatability, with the flexibility and cognitive skills of human workers. However, to achieve an efficient human–robot collaboration, several challenges need to be tackled. First, a safe interaction must be guaranteed to prevent harming humans having a direct contact with the moving robot. Additionally, to take full advantage of human skills, it is important that intuitive user interfaces are properly designed, so that human operators can easily program and interact with the robot. In this survey paper, an extensive review on human–robot collaboration in industrial environment is provided, with specific focus on issues related to physical and cognitive interaction. The commercially available solutions are also presented and the main industrial applications where collaborative robotic is advantageous are discussed, highlighting how collaborative solutions are intended to improve the efficiency of the system and which the open issue are.
ISSN:0957-4158
1873-4006
DOI:10.1016/j.mechatronics.2018.02.009