The new era of industry is shifting towards human-robot co-working, with close interaction in a shared workspace. In this regard, Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) in industrial settings has been a topic of significant interest in recent years, and it remains a promising area of research and development.
HRI in industrial robotics can be viewed differently from various perspectives depending on the interaction level, including coexistence, cooperation, or collaboration, where the robot and the human share the same workspace and act either side-by-side to accomplish a specific task or without interfering with each other. The new trend in industry is to bring together the intelligence, cognitive abilities, flexibility, and dexterity of humans with the precision, repeatability, and strength of robots to improve worker well-being and productivity. However, regardless of the interaction level, the same challenges are present, which are more serious when it comes to full robot autonomy. These include natural and safe interaction, learning with and from humans, prediction of human intentions, navigation strategies, task planning and allocation, and flexible and efficient performance in real-world environments.
Among these salient aspects, safety requires particular attention. In the past, industrial robots were often kept in safety cages away from human workers. However, given the recent innovative technologies, robots and humans are now sharing the same spaces, and collaborating on the same or complementary tasks. In such real-world conditions, guaranteeing human safety is of paramount importance. This is an emerging issue that has to be solved. Generally, the safety of an industrial robotic system concerns many aspects such as hardware failures (e.g. sensor errors) and communication malfunctions, but also reasoning errors leading to wrong decisions, which are directly related to the system intelligence and its ability to make the right decision whatever the surrounding conditions and while foreseeing the unseen. In light of this innovative technology, it is essential to trust the robot and, in all circumstances, safe behavior must be inherently guaranteed and accomplished.
The main purpose of this Research Topic is to investigate the challenges and opportunities in terms of effective, safe, and trustworthy HRI emerging from leaving behind the traditional paradigm of robots “working” separately from humans, but rather working together as collaborators to accomplish tasks in industrial settings. This is a rapidly growing area of research with many open research issues.
This Research Topic aims to publish contributions focusing on subjects ranging from theoretical aspects to real-world applications in the field of HRI in industrial settings. Authors are invited to submit their work, potentially related, but not limited to the following list of topics of interest:
• Safety and collision avoidance in human-robot collaboration
• Safe cobots
• Human-robot interaction for industrial applications
• Human-robot task allocation and planning
• Interaction in human-robot hybrid teams
• Organization and management of human-robot hybrid teams
• Sensor-based human-robot interaction
• Interaction modalities (vision, audio, tactile, etc.) for cobots
• Multi-modal high-level interaction
• Applications of virtual & augmented reality in human-robot collaboration
• Prediction of human intent for human-robot collaboration
• Risks analysis approaches in human-robot hybrid team settings
• Human-in-the-loop control of cobots
• HRI in Industry 4.0 & Industry 5.0
• Perception, navigation, and motion planning for cobots
• Trajectory planning and optimization for cobots
• Artificial intelligence for cobots
• Industrial applications and the Metaverse
The new era of industry is shifting towards human-robot co-working, with close interaction in a shared workspace. In this regard, Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) in industrial settings has been a topic of significant interest in recent years, and it remains a promising area of research and development.
HRI in industrial robotics can be viewed differently from various perspectives depending on the interaction level, including coexistence, cooperation, or collaboration, where the robot and the human share the same workspace and act either side-by-side to accomplish a specific task or without interfering with each other. The new trend in industry is to bring together the intelligence, cognitive abilities, flexibility, and dexterity of humans with the precision, repeatability, and strength of robots to improve worker well-being and productivity. However, regardless of the interaction level, the same challenges are present, which are more serious when it comes to full robot autonomy. These include natural and safe interaction, learning with and from humans, prediction of human intentions, navigation strategies, task planning and allocation, and flexible and efficient performance in real-world environments.
Among these salient aspects, safety requires particular attention. In the past, industrial robots were often kept in safety cages away from human workers. However, given the recent innovative technologies, robots and humans are now sharing the same spaces, and collaborating on the same or complementary tasks. In such real-world conditions, guaranteeing human safety is of paramount importance. This is an emerging issue that has to be solved. Generally, the safety of an industrial robotic system concerns many aspects such as hardware failures (e.g. sensor errors) and communication malfunctions, but also reasoning errors leading to wrong decisions, which are directly related to the system intelligence and its ability to make the right decision whatever the surrounding conditions and while foreseeing the unseen. In light of this innovative technology, it is essential to trust the robot and, in all circumstances, safe behavior must be inherently guaranteed and accomplished.
The main purpose of this Research Topic is to investigate the challenges and opportunities in terms of effective, safe, and trustworthy HRI emerging from leaving behind the traditional paradigm of robots “working” separately from humans, but rather working together as collaborators to accomplish tasks in industrial settings. This is a rapidly growing area of research with many open research issues.
This Research Topic aims to publish contributions focusing on subjects ranging from theoretical aspects to real-world applications in the field of HRI in industrial settings. Authors are invited to submit their work, potentially related, but not limited to the following list of topics of interest:
• Safety and collision avoidance in human-robot collaboration
• Safe cobots
• Human-robot interaction for industrial applications
• Human-robot task allocation and planning
• Interaction in human-robot hybrid teams
• Organization and management of human-robot hybrid teams
• Sensor-based human-robot interaction
• Interaction modalities (vision, audio, tactile, etc.) for cobots
• Multi-modal high-level interaction
• Applications of virtual & augmented reality in human-robot collaboration
• Prediction of human intent for human-robot collaboration
• Risks analysis approaches in human-robot hybrid team settings
• Human-in-the-loop control of cobots
• HRI in Industry 4.0 & Industry 5.0
• Perception, navigation, and motion planning for cobots
• Trajectory planning and optimization for cobots
• Artificial intelligence for cobots
• Industrial applications and the Metaverse