A Morphology of Human Robot Collaboration Systems for Industrial Assembly

In recent years, the number of hybrid work systems using human robot collaboration (HRC) increased in industrial production environments – enhancing productivity while reducing work-related burden. Despite growing availability of HRC-suitable manipulation and safety technology, tools and techniques facilitating the design, planning and implementation process are still lacking. System engineers who strive to implement technically feasible, ergonomically meaningful and economically beneficial HRC applications need to make design and technology decisions in various subject areas, whereas the design alternatives per such subject area are plenty – combining aspects to a challenge of increased complexity. In this paper, the heuristic procedure of morphological analysis is applied to establish a description model that can serve as both a supporting design guideline for future HRC applications of value-adding, industrial quality as well as a tool to characterize and compare existing applications. It focuses on HRC within assembly processes, and illustrates the complexity of HRC applications in a comprehensible manner through its multi-dimensional structure. The morphology has been validated through its application on various existing industrial HRC applications, research demonstrators and interviews of experts from academia.