FW-HTF-P: Human-Robot Collaboration for Enhancing Work Capabilities

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

The research objective of this Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier (FW-HTF) project is to create a matchmaking tool to identify opportunities in manufacturing workplaces where robot capabilities can augment or enhance human workers to improve productivity and safety. This planning project will investigate the possibility to integrate human workers into work processes by modeling tasks from an existing database of critical tasks required to perform each of more than 1000 occupations within the US economy. The project team will also engage with industry to understand differences between the results of task modeling and real work. Successful project outcomes will include the advancement of knowledge around future collaborative technologies, as well as the advancement of fundamental knowledge around the relationship and co-existence between American workers and intelligent robotic workplace assistants. A series of intensive workshops will foster new research collaborations between experts in process optimization, labor economics, and public health to build a multidisciplinary research team for a long-term FW-HTF research initiative. This planning project will apply state-of-the-art work-design and task-allocation methods and tools to jobs and occupations that show high potential for the integration of collaborative robots to gain a better understanding of the technical challenges in human-robot teaming. The research team will model a subset of candidate tasks from the US Department of Labor Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database and apply optimization-based tools to explore possibilities for human-robot teaming and to investigate the impact of human-robot teaming on both station and system level performance. The project team will analyze the effects of modeled work configurations on key factors such as productivity, ergonomics, and compatibility. Upon project completion, the team will better understand the discrepancy between work models and real-world work, as well as the measurement challenges and constraints in the integration of collaborative robots to existing manufacturing environments. Workshop activities will foster new research collaborations with experts in process optimization, labor economics, and public health to build a multidisciplinary research team for a long-term initiative. The ultimate goal of this project is to develop the necessary research personnel, research infrastructure, and foundational work to expand the opportunities for studying future technology, future workers, and future work at the level of a FW-HTF full research project. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.