Using Virtual Reality for scenario-based Responsible Research and Innovation approach for Human Robot Co-production

Abstract

This paper proposes to use Virtual Reality scenarios to explore the reaction of stakeholders within an innovation process in the context of the introduction of robots working in close collaboration with users. The goal is to design the system upfront in such a way, that it is not perceived as a threat to the worker or his/her job. Within the responsible research and innovation approach, the introduction of new technology needs to be accompanied by a careful investigation of the thoughts and feelings of all stakeholders. Especially workers who are currently not working with robots but their workspace is currently undergoing an Industry 4.0 driven transformation, experience fear, that this new technology will make their jobs redundant. On the other hand, it can be observed, that successful robot interaction processes, on the one hand, increase the overall productivity, but also can enhance human well-being. The feeling of "teamwork" with the artificial intelligence entity can develop to be equally positive and motivating. To be able to design future workspaces which will result in a "teamwork" perception instead of the "fear" perception, the use of VR can be applied.

Towards next generation digital twin in robotics: Trends, scopes, challenges, and future

“…It was noticeable that, trends in RDT-aided HRI autonomy increased around 2019, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic [47] , [61] . Other applications included HRI workspace design and optimization using VR [63] , robotic construction supervision in MR [64] , and DT-integrated energy-efficient smart manufacturing [65] .…”

A Preliminary Study on Virtual Reality Tools in Human-Robot Interaction

“…Information is the most frequently adopted speech act, allowing to notify a teammate about: an intention [23,1], the current activity, the measured dis-tance from the target [23] or from the human [36], object properties [37] or trajectory [2]. Human presence (awareness of the person in the environment) is another relevant element considered in different studies [31], together with information about position with respect to an object [10,22] or a teammate [32], current status [36] and achieved performance [36,26].…”

“…Light signals, as visual feedbacks, are employed on industrial robots to notify the human about their proximity to the goal or intention, as presented in [23], in which a filled circle with higher intensity indicates that the robot is far from its target position, while the empty shape identifies the zero distance. Such interaction channel is described by [2] as an immediate and efficient way of communicating the android's future trajectory in a shared environment, where multiple robots collaborate with humans and each of the autonomous driving workers is able to re-plan its motion based on the teammates intentions. Human presence detection is introduced in [31] through the usage of different colors, exploited to categorize three zones: green, yellow and red.…”