FELICE Update: Evaluation at workstations

IfADo successfully supported the evaluation of the FELICE system at two different workstations. Experienced workers as well as unexperienced workers used the FELICE robot while mounting parts of the car door. The goal of the evaluation was to track the achievements of the project and the progress of the technical development. IfADo’s focus was on the human factors aspects of the workplace namely the mental workload, trust, acceptance, as well as usability of the entire system. However, also performance measures such as cycle times were assessed. The full assembly line was evaluated on non-human based performance metrics within the digital twin.

The human factors evaluation tests showed promising results as the system was trusted by all workers and the expected acceptance showed good results. The usability was satisfactory and gives rise to further improvements. Moreover, the evaluation pointed to aspects that are still to be improved for the final deployment of the FELICE system. This includes among other things the movement speed and the precise scheduling of the robot. In addition, the visual communication between robot and worker must be evaluated further for each collaborative action in the context of the full workflow. The physical interaction such as the handover itself and the return of the tool in the robot gripper was fluent.

Future development must focus on speeding up collaborative interaction to improve the workflow. Generally, the FELICE system reduces physical demand which has the potential to further improve wellbeing. Regarding less and more experienced workers, the results show that system knowledge increases trust and reduces frustration thus helping to work with the system. Therefore, a training on collaborative action safety can foster system performance.