Design of a Human-Robot Collaborative System: Methodology and Case Study

Human-machine collaboration is one of the key drivers of the Industry 4.0 paradigm. The recent advances in collaborative robotics led to the effective implementation of various control strategies able to improve interactions between robots and humans in unstructured environments. This represents an important socio-economic aspect: the robot does not replace the human being, but supports them in carrying out repetitive or dangerous tasks. In this scenario it is necessary to take into account different contrasting issues that derive from the necessity to grant the high performance typical of a robotic installation together with the safety levels required by a manual operation. In this paper we analyse the use case of a famous kitchen industry that decided to test the introduction of collaborative robotics to increase the flexibility and productivity of their production lines. A method, to define the design criteria of the Human-Robot Collaboration system (HRC), is proposed taking into account aspects related to both the safety and the ergonomics of the human operator, using a real-time mapping of the work area and the management of operations. The collaboration between robot and operator can be facilitated thanks to the use of an assistive device which, through the recognition of gestures, allows easy communication. Therefore, this paper aims to combine: operator safety and ergonomics, study of the workstation, sensor technologies, identification and tracing of gestures. Several simulations have been performed to evaluate the proposed collaborative workstation.