Design and evaluation of an Augmented Vision System for human-robot cooperation in cognitively automated assembly cells

A research project has been initiated to study self-optimizing assembly cells and to design innovative ergonomic human-machine interfaces of the cell's numerical control. An experimental assembly cell was designed where a robot carries out a certain repertoire of coordinated pick and place operations with small work pieces. In order to support the human operator while monitoring the operations and intervening in the case of assembly errors, an Augmented Vision System (AVS) has been designed and developed. The study described in this paper deals with the ergonomic presentation of assembly information by the AVS in order to support the human operator in developing a cooperative disassembly strategy between the human operator and robot. A laboratory experiment was carried out to compare two different participant groups (different professional education) and to investigate different decision support modes. A total of 44 participants participated in the experiments. The statistical analysis shows that the decision support mode as well as the different participant groups significantly influence the execution time of the participants (α=0.05).