Developing Human-Robot Interaction for an Industry 4.0 Robot

This paper reports about a User Experience (UX) study of comparing two industrial robotic arms (robot A and B) in the context of human-robot cooperation in a factory environment. Robot A was an off-the-shelf robotic arm controlled via touchpanel (remote-control). It was evaluated in a previous study by five industry workers using established behavior analysis based on video recordings and UX questionnaires. Subsequently, robot B was developed featuring physical human-robot interaction (pHRI). The goal of the present study was to find out (1) if there is a difference in the UX between robot A and B (remote-control vs. physical HRI), and (2) how to improve of the cooperation with robot B. For this purpose, the five industry workers of the previous study (robot A) evaluated robot B using the same questionnaires and behavior analysis methods. Our results show an improved UX of robot B in terms of usability, temporal demands, and performance expectancy. Furthermore, ergonomic needs and supportive artificial intelligence were identified as critical for a further technical revision.