Human-Robot Collaboration in Manual Assembly – A Collaborative Workplace

Abstract

The integration of humans into the assembly process in terms of human-robot collaboration (HRC) enables the flexibility of production processes with a high degree of automation, which are not flexible enough to overcome the challenges in nowadays production in all cases. However, this form of cooperation raises issues such as occupational safety or acceptance. In order to address these questions, a HRC workstation has been designed that is on the one hand characterized by traditional ergonomic design aspects with regard to conventional industrial requirements. On the other hand, data from intelligent sensors are used to adapt the system’s behavior to the way the working person works. The workstation was developed on the basis of the results of a requirement analysis. This article presents the ergonomic concepts of the workplace and their implementation.