Human–robot collaboration

Many new applications for robots require them to work alongside people as capable members of human-robot teams.

Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) is an interdisciplinary research area comprising classical robotics, human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, process design, layout planning, ergonomics, cognitive sciences, and psychology.

[9][10] Human-human collaborative activities are studied in depth in order to identify the characteristics that enable humans to successfully work together.

[11] These activity models usually aim to understand how people work together in teams, how they form intentions and achieve a joint goal.

[9][16] An example case to illustrate these concepts would be a collaborative activity where agents are moving a table out the door, mutual responsiveness ensures that movements of the agents are synchronized; a commitment to the joint activity reassures each team member that the other will not at some point drop his side; and a commitment to mutual support deals with possible breakdowns due to one team member’s inability to perform part of the plan.

Therefore, researchers invent interaction paradigms that divide responsibility between human users and computer systems by assigning distinct roles that exploit the strengths and overcome the weaknesses of both partners.

[18] Specialization of Roles: Based on the level of autonomy and intervention, there are several human-robot relationships including master-slave, supervisor–subordinate, partner–partner, teacher–learner and fully autonomous robot.

The robot control system can use biomechanical models and sensors to optimize various ergonomic metrics, such as muscle fatigue.