INDUSTRY 4.0:SOCIAL CHALLENGES AND RISKS

Industry 4.0 is a term first introduced by the German government during the Hannover Messe fair in 2011 when it launched an initiative to support German industry in tackling future challenges. It refers to the 4th industrial revolution in which disruptive digital technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of Everything (IoE), robotics, virtual reality (VR), and artificial intelligence (AI), are impacting industrial production.The new industrial paradigms of Industry 4.0 demand a socio-technical evolution of the human role in production systems, in which all working activities of the value chain will be performed with smart approaches.However, the automation of processes can have unpredictable effects.Nowadays, in a smart factory, the role of human operators is often only to control and supervise the automated processes. This new condition of workers brought forth a paradox: malfunctions or irregularities in the automated production process are rare but challenging.This article discusses the challenges and risks that the 4th industrial revolution is bringing to society.It introduces the concept of the Irony of Automation. This propounds that the more reliable an automated system, the less human operators have to do and, consequently, the less attention they pay to the system while it is operating.The authors go on to discuss the human-centered approach to automation, whose purpose is not necessarily to automate previously manual functions but, rather, to enhance user effectiveness and reduce errors.

Investigating the Usability of a Vibrotactile Torso Display for Improving Simulated Teleoperation Obstacle Avoidance

While unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) teleoperation is advantageous in terms of adaptability and safety, it introduces challenges resulting from the operator\u27s poor perception of the remote environment. Previous literature on the ability of haptic feedback to augment visual displays indicates that UGV obstacle avoidance information may be more meaningfully communicated via vibrotactile torso systems. Presenting this information so that operators can accurately detect the proximity from walls and obstructions could result in a significant reduction in errors, ultimately improving task performance and increasing the usability of teleoperation. The goal of the current study was to determine the degree to which a vibrotactile torso belt could improve UGV teleoperation performance over video feed alone in a simulated environment. Sixty operators controlled a UGV using a simulated video feed, while half also utilized a vibrotactile belt. Results indicated that the vibrotactile display did not improve navigational performance or decrease subjective workload over video feed alone. Possible reasons for this and limitations are discussed

Design and evaluation of a graphical user interface for facilitating expert knowledge transfer: a teleoperation case study

Nowadays, teleoperation systems are increasingly used for the training of specific skills to carry out complex tasks in dangerous environments. One of the challenges of these systems is to ensure that the time it takes for users to acquire these skills is as short as possible. For this, the user interface must be intuitive and easy to use. This document describes the design and evaluation of a graphical user interface so that a non-expert user could use a teleoperated system intuitively and without excessive training time. To achieve our goal, we use a user-centered design process model. To evaluate the interface, we use our own methodology and the results allow improving its usability.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The Effects Of Video Frame Delay And Spatial Ability On The Operation Of Multiple Semiautonomous And Tele-operated Robots

The United States Army has moved into the 21st century with the intent of redesigning not only the force structure but also the methods by which we will fight and win our nation\u27s wars. Fundamental in this restructuring is the development of the Future Combat Systems (FCS). In an effort to minimize exposure of front line soldiers the future Army will utilize unmanned assets for both information gathering and when necessary engagements. Yet this must be done judiciously, as the bandwidth for net-centric warfare is limited. The implication is that the FCS must be designed to leverage bandwidth in a manner that does not overtax computational resources. In this study alternatives for improving human performance during operation of teleoperated and semi-autonomous robots were examined. It was predicted that when operating both types of robots, frame delay of the semi-autonomous robot would improve performance because it would allow operators to concentrate on the constant workload imposed by the teleoperated while only allocating resources to the semi-autonomous during critical tasks. An additional prediction was that operators with high spatial ability would perform better than those with low spatial ability, especially when operating an aerial vehicle. The results can not confirm that frame delay has a positive effect on operator performance, though power may have been an issue, but clearly show that spatial ability is a strong predictor of performance on robotic asset control, particularly with aerial vehicles. In operating the UAV, the high spatial group was, on average, 30% faster, lazed 12% more targets, and made 43% more location reports than the low spatial group. The implications of this study indicate that system design should judiciously manage workload and capitalize on individual ability to improve performance and are relevant to system designers, especially in the military community

Using mixed-initiative human-robot interaction to bound performance in a search task

Mobile robots are increasingly used in dangerous domains, because they can keep humans out of harm’s way. Despite their advantages in hazardous environments, their general acceptance in other less dangerous domains has not been apparent and, even in dangerous environments, robots are often viewed as a “last-possible choice.” In order to increase the utility and acceptance of robots in hazardous domains researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory have both developed and tested novel mixed-initiative solutions that support the human-robot interactions. In a recent “dirty-bomb” experiment, participants exhibited different search strategies making it difficult to determine any performance benefits. This paper presents a method for categorizing the search patterns and shows that the mixed-initiative solution decreased the time to complete the task and decreased the performance spread between participants independent of prior training and of individual strategies used to accomplish the task

EVALUATING ROBOT TECHNOLOGIES AS TOOLS TO EXPLORE RADIOLOGICAL AND OTHER HAZARDOUS ENVIRONMENTS

There is a general consensus that robots could be beneficial in performing tasks within hazardous radiological environments. Most control of robots in hazardous environments involves master-slave or teleoperation relationships between the human and the robot. While teleoperation-based solutions keep humans out of harms way, they also change the training requirements to accomplish a task. In this paper we present a research methodology that allowed scientists at Idaho National Laboratory to identify, develop, and prove a semi-autonomous robot solution for search and characterization tasks within a hazardous environment. Two experiments are summarized that validated the use of semi-autonomy and show that robot autonomy can help mitigate some of the performance differences between operators who have different levels of robot experience, and can improve performance over teleoperated systems

RADIAL OUTFLOW IN TELEOPERATION: A POSSIBLE SOLUTION FOR IMPROVING DEPTH PERCEPTION

Practical experience has shown that operators of remote robotic systems have difficulty perceiving aspects of remotely operated robots and their environments (e.g. Casper & Murphy, 2003). Operators often find it difficult, for example, to perceive accurately the distances and sizes of remote objects. Past research has demonstrated that employing a moveable camera that provides the operator optical motion allows for the perception of distance in the absence of other information about depth (Dash, 2004). In this experiment a camera was constrained to move only forward and backward, thus adding monocular radial outflow to the video stream. The ability of remote operators to perceive the sizes of remote objects and to position a mobile robot at specific distances relative to the object was tested. Two different conditions were investigated. In one condition a dynamic camera provided radial outflow by moving forward and backward while atop a mobile robot. In the second condition the camera remained stationary atop the mobile robot. Results indicated no differences between camera conditions, but superior performance for distance perception was observed when compared to previous research (Dash, 2004). This thesis provides evidence that teleoperators of a terrestrial robot are able to determine egocentric depth in a remote environment when sufficient movement of the robot is involved