Adaptive Robot Behavior for Ergonomic Human-Robot Collaborations in Stationary Tooling Tasks

Growing automation needs in industries are likely to increase demand for collaborative robots (Cobots) to work in close proximity with humans. Cobots allow humans to utilize their advantages in terms of flexibility and decision-making capability. However, humans are prone to awkward working postures resulting in work-related musculoskeletal disorders when interacting with these cobots. This seeds the necessity for cobots to anticipate human actions and reconfiguring themselves to support good ergonomic postures during Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC). While addressing the ergonomic implications of a fully compliant (freely adjustable) cobot, this article evaluates and compares the performance of adaptive behaviors in cobots that aim to support good working postures of humans executing stationary tooling tasks. The qualitative and quantitative results of an experimental study conducted in a virtual reality framework were presented in terms of ergonomic evaluations, workload assessments, and usability analysis.