Human-Robot Assembly Task with Holographic Projections for Inexperienced Operators

In the age of flexible and fast-evolving industrial scenarios, the operator is often required to learn and perform different tasks during the same working shift. Making the collaboration between a human and a robot easier becomes then crucial. In this paper, we propose an exploratory study to analyze the advantages of using a mixed-reality interface to support the operator during the learning phase of a new task in collaboration with a robot. To highlight the benefits of the proposed solution, we compared the use of the holographic instructions against the more traditional textual guidelines. The results showed that the proposed mixed-reality interface reduces the variability of the cycle-time and of the operator's learning rate. From a subjective perspective, the holographic learning method turned out to be more intuitive and effective than the textual one.