Human-Robot Interaction in Dynamic Work Environment: Implications for Workers' Situational Awareness

As the construction industry gradually transitions to Industry 5.0 due to the growing integration of unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned ground vehicles, the safety risks associated with human-robot interaction (HRI) have become a major concern. The increased dynamism associated with HRI highlights the need to understand the risks and hazards in this new ecosystem. However, limited research assesses the impact of dynamic work environments and HRI on workers' situational awareness (SA). Moreover, a few studies have evaluated the potential role of individual factors when exploring this relationship. This study investigated workers' SA in dynamic construction settings with robots using virtual simulations of critical lift, deep excavation, work at height, and bricklaying operations. Work dynamism and dynamic robotic environment reduced participants' SA by 6.75% and 5.95%, respectively. Work dynamism led to a reduction in participants' hazard recognition performance ranging from 15% to 53%, whereas the dynamic robotic environment resulted in a reduction between 3% and 18%. Conversely, work dynamism caused an increase in safety risk perception (SRP) between 9% and 69%, while the dynamic robotic environment resulted in a variable change in SRP, ranging from a decrease of 28% to an increase of 35%. The present study contributes to construction safety research by providing insight into the relationship between workplace dynamism and SA, thereby providing useful information that could be used to shape safety practices and advance situational HRI research.