Human-Robot Collaborative Workflows for Reconfigurable Fabrication Systems in Timber Prefabrication using Augmented Reality

Abstract

The demand for affordable housing is growing fast. However, compared to the manufacturing industry, the construction sector has a relatively low level of automation and productivity. Timber construction is relevant for solving current problems like this demand or the huge resource and energy consumption of the construction sector. Well-known methods from manufacturing technology for achieving a high degree of automation are only partly transferable to the construction industry. The reason for this is the heavy project orientation in timber construction. Therefore, the timber construction industry needs an adaptable, highly flexible, and intelligent automation solution that enables the efficient transition of fabrication from project to project. Current advances for automation in timber prefabrication are based on the use of flexible, modular, and reconfigurable manufacturing systems using industrial robots. Since certain tasks in timber prefabrication are difficult to automate and also require the expertise and years of experience of skilled workers, a key factor for successful automation in timber construction is the integration of human workers into the automation solution. Automation based on industrial robots with human-machine cooperation offers a high degree of flexibility, which is needed in the timber construction industry. However, this requires a concept for control integration and interaction for task-sharing between automation systems and human workers. In this paper, we present an interaction concept based on a shared task graph between fabrication systems and humans to integrate workers into such a system in a feasible way in the context of timber construction. The main focus is on the direct interaction of humans with the system. For the implementation of this concept, suitable interfaces between humans and machines are needed. For the first evaluation of these interfaces, a small user study with augmented reality technology is conducted.