Exploring Operator Requirements for Human-Robot Collaboration in A Composite Lay-Up Process

Many industrial production processes continue to involve laborious manual tasks. Composite layup processes in aircraft interior manufacturing still rely heavily on lengthy and physically demanding manual task performance by skilled human operators. Applying a robot to work collaboratively with the operator in the composite layup process can be a promising solution to not only improve productivity and efficiency but also the operator’s well-being. To ensure human-robot collaboration achieves these benefits, it is important to design the new system taking user requirements into account. This paper describes a study that explores a new robot application design for composite layup from a Human-Centred Design perspective using a participatory design approach. A Hierarchical Task Analysis was first conducted to systematically review the traditional composite layup process that requires two operators’ manual work and identify task challenges to be addressed by the collaboration between one human and one robot. Then, a participatory design group workshop was conducted with experienced layup operators to capture user requirements, indicating expected robot applications to address the current task challenges. These expected applications are further classified into five types: Action, Retrieval, Checking, Selecting, and Information Communication, which reflect desirable cognitive capabilities and technology integration for the robot system. The findings provide insights for designing human-robot systems that align with human capabilities and requirements to facilitate seamless integration into existing layup workflow. Also, the research outcomes could be applied to develop a structured framework for advanced human-robot collaboration development in broader industrial operations.