Augmented reality for industrial robot programmers: Workload analysis for task-based, augmented reality-supported robot control

Stadler, Susanne; Kain, Kevin; Giuliani, Manuel; Mirnig, Nicole; Stollnberger, Gerald; Tscheligi, Manfred

Abstract

© 2016 IEEE. Augmented reality (AR) can serve as a tool to provide helpful information in a direct way to industrial robot programmers throughout the teaching process. It seems obvious that AR support eases the programming process and increases the programmer's productivity and programming accuracy. However, additional information can also potentially increase the programmer's perceived workload. To explore the impact of augmented reality on robot teaching, as a first step we have chosen a Sphero robot control scenario and conducted a within-subject user study with 19 professional industrial robot programmers, including novices and experts. We focused on the perceived workload of industrial robot programmers and their task completion time when using a tablet-based AR approach with visualization of task-based information for controlling a robot. Each participant had to execute three typical robot programming tasks: tool center point teaching, trajectory teaching, and overlap teaching. We measured the programmers' workload in the dimensions of mental demand, physical demand, temporal demand, frustration, effort, and performance. The study results show that the presentation of task-based information in the tablet-based AR interface decreases the mental demand of the industrial robot programmers during the robot control process. At the same time, however, the programmers' task completion time increases.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2016
• Acceptance Date: Aug 26, 2016
• Publication Date: Nov 15, 2016
• Deposit Date: Feb 21, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 28, 2017
• Journal: 2016 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)
• Print ISSN: 1944-9437
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 179-184
• Series ISSN: 1944-9437
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2016.7745108
• Keywords: service robots, robot kinematics, education, robot programming, trajectory
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/906007
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2016.7745108
• Related Public URLs: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7745108/?reload=true
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), 2016
• Contract Date: Feb 28, 2017