Polishing 5.0: A Virtual Reality-based study on Human-Robot Collaboration Modalities for Innovative Manufacturing

Today we are facing a very rapid technological transformation: recent developments in computing are challenging and reshaping the way we work. The recent Industry 5.0 paradigm promoted by the European Commission aims to innovate manufacturing plants by introducing emergent intelligent technologies that assist rather than substitute skilled operators and thus improve their productivity and wellbeing. This new vision calls for the inclusion of workers to innovate and redesign their work practices and environments. Under the so-called ‘Lighthouse Project’ at the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, the present research embraces this mission, with the aim to semi-automate the quality control and polishing of ceramic washbasins in a real factory setting. Four variants of a Human-Robot collaboration system for a joint execution of the task have been developed with an iterative design approach and tested with 28 users in a Virtual Reality simulation, collecting qualitative and quantitative data on the user performance and experience. The system relied on augmented marking gestures and visual cues as forms of user input and robot output, respectively. In the present thesis we will present the result of this comparison. Users appreciated the support of the robot and the use of the projection based Mixed Reality interface but suggested a different combination of devices and called for customizable features. The study findings will serve as design guidelines for the next implementation of the solution.