Construction of Human-Robot Cooperation Assembly Simulation System Based on Augmented Reality

Human-Robot cooperation (HRC) is the developing trend in the field of industrial assembly. Design and evaluation of the HRC assembly workstation considering the human factor is very important. In order to evaluate the transformational construction scenario of a manual assembly workstation to a HRC workstation fast and safely, a HRC assembly simulation system is constructed which is based on Augmented Reality (AR) with human-in-loop interaction. It enables a real operator to interact with virtual robot in a real scene, and the assembly steps of real workers can be restored and mapped to a virtual human model for further ergonomic analysis. Kinect and LeapMotion are used as the sensors for human-robot interaction decision and feedback. An automobile gearbox assembly is taken as an example for different assembly task verification, operators’ data are collected and analyzed by RULA scores and NASA-TLX questionnaires. The result shows that the simulation system can be used for the human factor evaluation of different HRC task configuration schemes.