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Rethinking Human Ergonomics in Lean Manufacturing and Service Industry: Towards Adaptive Robots with Anticipatory Behaviors

Project description

How robots can help reduce workplace hazards

Occupational ergonomics is designed to promote worker health, safety and comfort as well as productivity by designing the job to fit the worker. It involves adaptation of tasks, workstations, tools and equipment in order to reduce the risk of many work-related musculoskeletal disorders, which are a leading cause of disability among workers. Looking to the future, the EU-funded Ergo-Lean project will study human ergonomics during human-robot environment interactions. It will explore the potential of collaborative robotics technology to deliver an original set of anticipatory behaviours that contribute to the improvement of human physical factors during interaction. Specifically, it will study how robots can contribute to ergonomic improvement of workplace conditions in order to mitigate occupational risks.

Objective

Occupational ergonomics is facing a new complex challenge caused by the adaptation of industrial processes to the demands of the high-mix, low-volume production. In such processes, humans operate in, and interact with dynamically changing environments. The underlying physical interactions can cause variations of human states, and make a traditionally identified ergonomic pose of a human non-efficient and unproductive, or vice versa. This challenge has contributed to the growth of musculoskeletal disorders in manufacturing and service industries undergoing a lean transformation, and calls for new thinking on occupational ergonomics.
Ergo-Lean proposes to study, for the first time, human ergonomics during complex human-robot-environment interactions, and investigate methods to anticipate the effect of worker actions in the short, middle and long term. It explores the potential of collaborative robotics technology to deliver an original set of anticipatory behaviors that contribute to the improvement of human physical factors during interaction. Ergo-Lean will create radically new Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) systems where the robot and human directly interact, forming a dyad which optimally solves manufacturing problems in the environment, with the robot flexibly contributing to ergonomic improvement of workplace conditions. To achieve this, the research will be articulated along five multidisciplinary scientific objectives to: i) Understand and formulate human ergonomics during dynamic interactions; ii) Investigate ways of applying the HRC technology to the mitigation of occupational risks; iii) Evaluate the influence of feedback interfaces for ergonomic coordination of motor redundancy; iv) Study shared authority models for ergonomic HRC systems; and v) Challenge and demonstrate the improved adaptability and acceptability of Ergo-Lean systems. Ergo-Lean will have profound socio-economic impacts by improving workers’ wellbeing and contributing to productivity.

Host institution

FONDAZIONE ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI TECNOLOGIA
Net EU contribution
€ 1 488 750,00
Address
VIA MOREGO 30
16163 Genova
Italy

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Region
Nord-Ovest Liguria Genova
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost
€ 1 488 750,00

Beneficiaries (1)