User-Centered Human-Robot Coworking: A Novel Approach Transforming Manual Tasks

This paper focuses on the transformation of manual tasks into user-centered robotic applications. Thereto, the user-centered design process (UCD) was adapted and successfully applied in the context of human-robot coworking. The novelty of our approach is that requirements of the robot have to be considered in the design process equally to those of the human. A further key finding is that an axiomatic design is necessary to enable both an efficient and user-centered task distribution between human and robot. The adapted UCD is validated exploratively on two industrial reference processes. Using a batchwise assembly, a usability study on both reference processes under laboratory conditions was conducted. The results show that the efficiency has strongly increased in the varistor assembly, when coworking with the robot compared to the manual tasks of about 24 %. The novel approach also revealed an overall high usability, acceptance and perceived safety, but major differences in the temporal and mental demand.