An Application of a Wearable Device with Motion-Capture and Haptic-Feedback for Human–Robot Collaboration

Research on human–machine collaboration in Industry 5.0 has attracted significant attention in the manufacturing sector. Although human–robot collaboration can improve work efficiency and productivity, the design of its process is time consuming and cost intensive. The digitalization of machines facilitates automation and improves the intelligence of mechanical tasks. However, the digitalization of humans to improve the intelligence of operation functions for workers is difficult. To solve the difficulty of human digitalization, this study designed a human–robot interaction application based on motion capture using a digital human and virtual robot. The proposed framework supports process managers and shop-floor workers. Process managers can design the optimal collaborative process by interacting with robots and identifying their movements in the virtual world. Shop-floor workers can avoid collision accidents with robots by checking the future movements of the robot in the virtual world, on the basis of which they become proficient in the collaborative task to be actually performed in the physical world. An experiment was conducted on a virtual shop-floor that was modeled based on a physical shop-floor. The experimental results showed that a worker can avoid collision with the help of the proposed framework. Thus, the proposed framework can prevent collisions and accidents during the human–robot collaboration process in the real world.