Human robot interaction in industrial robotics. Examples from research centers to industry

Current state of the art in industrial robotics presents highly autonomous production plants, where an undefined number of robots work in cooperation to perform complicated tasks in an automatic way. However, these tasks are repetitive and generally do not allow a minimum change or variation in the overall process to obtain a successful result. In addition to this, these layouts do not allow any fast or easy change in the programmed operation, being not flexible at all. Contrary to this typical industrial situation, current research activities in industrial robotics are focused on human robot interaction and safety, to carry out added value operations that need to be performed both the human and the robot working together. This paper outlines real research cases of this latest type, which have as the final objective their set up in industrial facilities, presenting a review of the current state of the art in human robot interaction to explain, in following sections, successful industrial cases developed in the framework of European Commission Projects.