Assistive Robots in Highly Flexible Automotive Manufacturing Processes

Increasing demand for more product variants combined with shorter life cycles lead to higher complexity in production processes. One opportunity to overcome these challenges is seen in the combination of manual and automated work within usable instructive Human-Robot-Collaboration (iHRC). An assistive robot receives instructions from a worker, where and how to execute the next production steps. This allows a flexible adaptation to various production conditions without altering the robot programming. In order to realize such production systems, usable Human-Robot-Interfaces (HRIs) are necessary. Frameworks for the conceptual and methodological design as well as evaluation of such systems cannot be found in scientific literature or practice. This paper reports the development of an iHRC system for the automotive sector with the use of a mixed-method user-centered design framework. We show multi-dimensional usability aspects of HRIs as well as reflect on the suitability of the chosen development methods and their use in practice. The resulting prototype, the executed analysis and usability studies provide a basis for usable iHRC. First design principles for further developments of HRIs in the industrial context can be derived.