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A conceptual framework to evaluate human-robot collaboration

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Abstract

Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) is a form of direct interaction between humans and robots. The objective of this type of interaction is to perform a task by combining the skills of both humans and robots. HRC is characterized by several aspects, related both to robots and humans. Many works have focused on the study of specific aspects related to HRC, e.g., safety, task organization. However, a major issue is to find a general framework to evaluate the collaboration between humans and robots considering all the aspects of the interaction. The goals of this paper are the following: (i) highlighting the different latent dimensions that characterize the HRC problem and (ii) constructing a conceptual framework to evaluate and compare different HRC configuration profiles. The description of the methodology is supported by some practical examples.

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Funding

This work has been partially supported by “Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca” Award “TESUN-83486178370409 finanziamento dipartimenti di eccellenza CAP. 1694 TIT. 232 ART. 6”.

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Appendix: EAWS structure

Appendix: EAWS structure

In this section, the structure of EAWS [67], a tool for the evaluation of physical ergonomics, is reported in more detail. Moreover, the evaluation of physical ergonomics through EAWS for the assembly task example, introduced in Section 5.1, is shown in detail. EAWS is divided in two macro-sections: Whole body and Upper limbs. The whole body macro-section is composed of four sections:

  • Extra points (Fig. 7), which contains additional types physical work load

  • Body postures (Fig. 8), which addresses static working postures and high frequent movements

  • Action forces (Fig. 9), which concerns body forces and forces of the hand–finger system

  • Manual materials handling (Fig. 10), which addresses the handling of loads of more than 2–3 kg

Fig. 7
figure 7

Overall result and Extra points section of EAWS [67]. The evaluations for the assembly task are provided in red

Fig. 8
figure 8

Body postures section of EAWS [67]. The evaluations for the assembly task are provided in red

Fig. 9
figure 9

Action forces section of EAWS [67]. The evaluations for the assembly task are provided in red

Fig. 10
figure 10

Manual materials handling section of EAWS [67]. The evaluations for the assembly task are provided in red

The Upper limbs macro-section has only one section: Upper limb load in repetitive tasks (Fig. 11), which covers gripping modes, forces, postures of the upper limbs in repetitive task.

Fig. 11
figure 11

Upper limbs macro-section evaluation for assembly task. The evaluations for the assembly task are provided in red

Moreover, Figs. 78910, and 11 contain the evaluation of each EAWS section for the assembly task example, introduced in Section 5.1. Manual materials handling section was not taken into account, due to the absence of handling of loads exceeding 2–3 kg. Adding up the scores, the whole body macro-section obtained 12 points, while the upper limbs macro-section 2.8 points (Fig. 7). Therefore, the final score of the EAWS is 12, as it is the maximum between the scores of the two macro-sections. The final EAWS evaluation is “Green”, since the final score is less than 25.

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Gervasi, R., Mastrogiacomo, L. & Franceschini, F. A conceptual framework to evaluate human-robot collaboration. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 108, 841–865 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-020-05363-1

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