Technology jump in the industry: human–robot cooperation in production

• Published in: Industrial robot Vol. 47; no. 5; pp. 757 - 775
• Main Authors: Dobra, Zoltan, Dhir, Krishna S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bedford Emerald Group Publishing Limited 01.09.2020
• Subjects: Collaboration; Collision avoidance; Cooperation; Human factors; Industrial applications; Literature reviews; Manufacturing; Pattern recognition systems; Product design; Relocation; Robotics; Robots; Scientific papers; Search engines
• ISSN: 0143-991X; 1758-5791
• DOI: 10.1108/IR-02-2020-0039

PurposeRecent years have seen a technological change, Industry 4.0, in the manufacturing industry. Human–robot cooperation, a new application, is increasing and facilitating collaboration without fences, cages or any kind of separation. The purpose of the paper is to review mainstream academic publications to evaluate the current status of human–robot cooperation and identify potential areas of further research.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review is offered that searches, appraises, synthetizes and analyses relevant works.FindingsThe authors report the prevailing status of human–robot collaboration, human factors, complexity/ programming, safety, collision avoidance, instructing the robot system and other aspects of human–robot collaboration.Practical implicationsThis paper identifies new directions and potential research in practice of human–robot collaboration, such as measuring the degree of collaboration, integrating human–robot cooperation into teamwork theories, effective functional relocation of the robot and product design for human robot collaboration.Originality/valueThis paper will be useful for three cohorts of readers, namely, the manufacturers who require a baseline for development and deployment of robots; users of robots-seeking manufacturing advantage and researchers looking for new directions for further exploration of human–machine collaboration.