Effects of Autonomous Mobile Robots on Human Mental Workload and System Productivity in Smart Warehouses: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

Safety is of critical concern in human-robot collaboration. A human-in-the-loop experiment was conducted to assess the performance of the customized robot control scheme in a smart warehouse setting, where the human participants performed order picking and assembly tasks, and the mobile robot performed simulated pallet moving tasks. Three modes of human-robot interaction were tested (no robot involved, mobile robot with the empty payload and mobile robot with the full payload). Participants’ pupillary response, subjective workload as well as task performance (completion time and errors) were recorded and compared between different modes. Preliminary results indicated a slight decrease in human productivity (completion time increased from 191.4 to 204.1 seconds, p = 0.041) was well compensated by the relatively large gain from the robotics outputs. Additionally, human mental workload was negatively impacted (pupil diameter increased from 4.0 to 4.2 mm, p = 0.012) by introducing the robot into the shared workplace.

Effects of Human Personal Space on the Robot Obstacle Avoidance Be havior: A Human-in-the-loop Assessment

“…When it comes to the concept of safe human-robot interaction (HRI), two major aspects, physical safety and mental safety of humans, have been raised and addressed in the previous literature (Alami et al, 2006;Chen et al, 2020;Nonaka et al, 2004). Compared to physical safety, which requires the robot to avoid physically injuring humans (Asimov, 2004), mental safety is more complex as the human's discomfort and anxiety at the robot can be influenced by many factors such as personality, mood, culture, and environment.…”

Human Acceptance of the Cleaning Robot in Grocery Environments During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The cleaning robot in the video was simulated using the Fetch Freight Base (Fetch Robotics, Inc., San Jose, CA), a standard robotics platform for research (Wise et al, 2016;Chen et al, 2020;Chen et al, 2022). Modifications to the Freight Base were done to make the entire system roughly 1600 mm tall to better mimic the dimensions of the commercial-grade cleaning robot (e.g., Tennant T380AMR).…”

Human–Robot Interaction in Industrial Settings: Perception of Multiple Participants at a Crossroad Intersection Scenario with Different Courtesy Cues

“…Cooperation between humans and robots sharing a workspace is becoming increasingly common [8]. Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) is the process wherein human and robot agents work together to achieve shared goals.…”

“…Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) is the process wherein human and robot agents work together to achieve shared goals. For any level of collaboration, human safety has been a primary concern ever since robots were first created [8]. Beyond physical safety, other aspects also need to be considered when humans and robots interact, such as psychological aspects and mental stress [3].…”

“…Psychophysiological measures include direct measurement of cognitive variables, namely, heart rate variability (HRV), galvanic skin response (GSR), and eye blink rate [20]. These technologies are more feasible and capable of providing human cognitive status assessment and interpretation [8]. However, subjective measures are more often used because they show practical advantages, e.g., ease of implementation and non-intrusiveness.…”