Collaborative workcell in industrial assembly process with online ergonomics monitoring

With the advent of Industry 4.0, new technologies are introduced to provide welfare beyond jobs and growth, such as collaborative robots. To be effective, the collaboration between human and robot should be safe, intuitive and stable. Safe collaboration does not only means avoiding human-robot contact, the operator must also feel confident during the collaboration with the robot and avoid incorrect postures (physical ergonomics). In this work, we analyzed an industrial use-case related to the automation of manual tasks in production processes. We propose a collaborative workcell design which integrates a solution to real-time remote control of operator’s ergonomics in an interactive environment. The platform is tested in a real use case that involves several mechanical tasks in different scenarios, with and without the support of the robot. The results show both improvements in operator’s working condition when supported by robots and overall in the efficiency of the process.