Motor interference of incongruent motions increases workload in close HRI

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of motor interference in human arm motions performed in close vicinity to robot arm motions and resulting workload. Human and robot perform congruent (parallel) and incongruent (orthogonal) motions in front of each other and hand positions are recorded through an optical tracking system. The experimental results show a significant increase of human hand position variability as well as a decrease of perceived performance and an increase of perceived effort between congruent and incongruent motion conditions. Moreover, it is found that an increase of motor interference results in higher workload. The results further suggest that even though humanoid form might be considered more intuitive in close human–robot interaction, humanoid design of an interacting robot might not always be the best choice in terms of cooperative positioning accuracy and workload.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Keywords:

• Human–robot interaction
• robots for manufacturing
• interaction studies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung [13FH001AN8].

Notes on contributors

Kolja Kühnlenz

Kolja Kühnlenz is professor of automation and robotics and academic program director at Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Germany, since 2014. He received his PhD in 2007 and his habilitation degree in 2013 from TU Munich, Germany. He is also an adjunct teaching professor at TU Munich, Germany, since 2013. Before, he was visiting professor and interim chair of sensor systems at University of Passau, Germany, from 2013 to 2014 and department head at the Bavarian State office of Metrology from 2012 to 2014. Dr. Kühnlenz was senior researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Automatic Control Engineering (LSR), TU Munich, from 2007 to 2012, and Carl von Linde Junior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Munich, from 2009 to 2012. He held various responsible positions in research centers and graduate schools such as board member of Bernstein Center of Computational Neurosciences and DFG Cluster of Excellence Cognition for Technical Systems – CoTeSys, Munich, as well as chairman of the CoTeSys graduate center.

Barbara Kühnlenz

Barbara Kühnlenz, M.A. is professor of business psychology with focus on technical innovation at the Academic Center for Sciences and Humanities, Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Germany. Barbara holds a master's degree (Magister Artium) in Psycholinguistics and Social Psychology from Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU), and received her PhD degree in 2013 (summa cum laude) by the Electrical Engineering and Information Technology department at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). She performed her PhD at the Institute of Automatic Control Engineering (LSR) as a member of the interdisciplinary cluster of excellence ‘Cognition for Technical Systems’ (CoTeSys) and Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) with a research focus on social Human–Robot Interaction (HRI). Barbara was postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Cognitive Systems (ICS) from 2017 to 2019. Before, she was scientific coordinator of TechnologieAllianzOberfranken (TAO), from 2014 to 2017, and postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Electrical Engineering and Information Technology department at the University for Applied Sciences in Coburg from 2016 to 2019.