Human factors in cobot era: a review of modern production systems features

Abstract

Collaborative robots are increasingly common in modern production systems, since they allow to merge the productivity of automated systems with the flexibility and dexterity of manual ones. The direct interaction between the human and the robot can be the greatest advantage and the greatest limit of collaborative systems at the same time, depending on how it affects human factors like ergonomics and mental stress. This work presents an overview of collaborative robotics considering three main dimensions: robot features, modern production systems characteristics and human factors. A literature review on how such dimensions interact is addressed and a discussion on the current state of the art is presented, showing the topics that have been already widely explored and the research gaps that should be fulfilled in the future.