Augmented Reality Interface for UR5e Robot that Transfers Parts to a Human in Collaborative Assembly

Maksim Andreevich Mustafin; Elvira Valeryevna Chebotareva; Bai Yang; Mikhail Svinin; Evgeni Arkadievich Magid

Maksim Andreevich Mustafin Intelligent Robotics Department, Institute of Information Technology and Intelligent Systems, Kazan Federal University
Elvira Valeryevna Chebotareva Intelligent Robotics Department, Institute of Information Technology and Intelligent Systems, Kazan Federal University
Bai Yang Graduated School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University
Mikhail Svinin Information Science and Engineering Department, College of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University
Evgeni Arkadievich Magid Intelligent Robotics Department, Institute of Information Technology and Intelligent Systems, Kazan Federal University

Keywords: Human-Robot Interaction, Collaborative Assembly, AR Interface, UR5e collaborative robot

Abstract

Collaborative assembly is one of the most common tasks in collaborative robotics, which requires an efficient and user-friendly way of communication with a robot. This paper presents an augmented reality (AR) interface for controlling a UR5e robot in order to get assembly parts from a robot’s desktop in a collaborative assembly process. This interface is based on the concept of a smart mirror that recognizes hand gestures as control signals. A goal of the study is to investigate user perception of a contactless interaction method with the collaborative robot UR5e using this AR interface. 15 participants took part in experiments. During the experiments, the participants demonstrated a quick adaptation and a big interest to working side by side with the UR5e robot using the AR interface. Our results suggest that the developed AR interface is flexible, scalable in terms of development and can be recommended for equipping a workcell for collaborative assembly tasks of different products.