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Electronics
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Human-Robot Collaboration in Manufacturing
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Human-Robot Collaboration in Manufacturing

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Systems & Control Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 May 2022) | Viewed by 8615

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Cecilio Angulo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
IDEAI-UPC Research Centre on Intelligent Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Universitat Politècnica de Caytalunya, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: cognitive robotics; artificial intelligence and control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nowadays, robots collaborate with human workers in manufacturing; such robots are termed cobots. On the one hand, they reduce the incidence and severity of ergonomic injuries that can appear due to physical repetitive movements and, on the other hand, they may improve safety, quality, and productivity. Many manufacturers are introducing new robots into their human production lines that work together with humans, with setups based on different types of safety designs.

Moreover, provision of assistance to skilled workers is becoming crucial in work environments within manufacturing. Beyond ergonomic or safety issues, industrial companies are starting to consider new qualification needs and technical competences with regard to the operators. Decisions in the overall work processes are communicated to the operators to improve their information and skills. Hence, the most recent research activity in the field of human–robot collaboration in the context of manufacturing involves the consideration of cognitive and social dimensions through the development of assistant agents or advisor robots designed for increasing productivity and effective work organization.

This Special Issue focuses on the analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation of introducing robots collaborating with humans in manufacturing tasks. 

Prof. Dr. Cecilio Angulo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Electronics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Human–robot collaboration
  • Robotics in the fourth industrial revolution
  • Ergonomics in industrial human–robot collaboration
  • Safety in industrial human–robot collaboration
  • Organizational issues related with robot introduction in industry
  • Improving operator skills in human–robot industrial tasks
  • Cognitive and social dimension in industrial human–robot collaboration
  • Metrics in human–robot collaboration
  • Implementation of human–robot collaboration tasks in manufacturing
  • Advisors robots for operators in Industry 4.0

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 1079 KiB  
Article
Analysing Factory Workers’ Acceptance of Collaborative Robots: A Web-Based Tool for Company Representatives
by Marco Baumgartner, Tobias Kopp and Steffen Kinkel
Electronics 2022, 11(1), 145; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11010145 - 4 Jan 2022
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3418
Abstract
Collaborative robots are a new type of lightweight robots that are especially suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises. They offer new interaction opportunities and thereby pose new challenges with regard to technology acceptance. Despite acknowledging the importance of acceptance issues, small and medium-sized [...] Read more.
Collaborative robots are a new type of lightweight robots that are especially suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises. They offer new interaction opportunities and thereby pose new challenges with regard to technology acceptance. Despite acknowledging the importance of acceptance issues, small and medium-sized enterprises often lack coherent strategies to identify barriers and foster acceptance. Therefore, in this article, we present a collection of crucial acceptance factors with regard to collaborative robot use at the industrial workplace. Based on these factors, we present a web-based tool to estimate employee acceptance, to provide company representatives with practical recommendations and to stimulate reflection on acceptance issues. An evaluation with three German small and medium-sized enterprises reveals that the tool’s concept meets the demands of small and medium-sized enterprises and is perceived as beneficial as it raises awareness and deepens knowledge on this topic. In order to realise economic potentials, further low-threshold usable tools are needed to transfer research findings into the daily practice of small and medium-sized enterprises. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Human-Robot Collaboration in Manufacturing)
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19 pages, 7626 KiB  
Article
Cognitive Interaction Analysis in Human–Robot Collaboration Using an Assembly Task
by Alejandro Chacón, Pere Ponsa and Cecilio Angulo
Electronics 2021, 10(11), 1317; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10111317 - 31 May 2021
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3911
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. [...] Read more.
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. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Human-Robot Collaboration in Manufacturing)
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