The Design of Extended Reality-Enabled Tangible Interaction to Enhance the Interaction with Collaborative Robots

Collaborative robots (cobots) are increasingly employed in manufacturing to enhance productivity and efficiency, particularly by performing repetitive or precise tasks, allowing workers to focus on more complex activities. However, the growing adoption of cobots in dynamic environments, such as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), poses challenges in designing flexible and user-friendly interaction models. This research addresses these challenges by integrating tangible interaction and Extended Reality (XR) technologies to develop innovative interaction methods for human-robot collaboration in metalworking. The tangible interaction leverages users' familiarity with physical objects, while XR provides immersive, real-time visual overlays to enhance task execution and decision-making. A co-design methodology is employed, involving metalworkers, XR designers, and roboticists, to ensure the system meets user needs. The study progresses through four phases: contextual inquiry, co-design workshops, system development, and user testing. Preliminary findings highlight the potential of XR-enabled tangible interaction to improve safety, efficiency, and intuitiveness in cobot applications. Future work aims to refine prototypes, evaluate scalability, and explore broader industrial applications, paving the way for safer and more effective human-robot collaboration systems.