Software Architecture and Human-Centric design methodology in Human-Robot collaborative production systems

Over the last years both Research and Industry have allocated significant effort to address the requirement for flexible production by introducing technologies that allow humans and robots to coexist and share production tasks safely. The human-robot coexistence and collaboration in cageless environments introduces challenges that are both of technical and social nature. A human robot collaborative system can be viewed as a sociotechnical work system that can both increase production KPIs and improve the quality of life for people working in HRC environment. In addition, effective HRC requires acceptance and trust from the side of the operators and clear communication between operators and robots. This work presents a software architecture approach that enables personalized and human-centric HRC and aims to improve ergonomics, cognitive factors and acceptance. In this context, key technology solutions for different HRC aspects such as training, design and production are also presented.