Understanding welding practices on shipyards: an ethnographic study for designing an interactive robot welder

Abstract

The aim of this ethnographic study is to understand welding practices in shipyard environments with the purpose of designing an interactive robot welder. The robot is meant to help workers with their daily job while being deployed on a jack-up rig. The design of the robot, including its user interface turns out to be a challenging task due to several problematic conditions encountered on the shipyard: dust, irregular floor ground, high temperatures, wind variations, elevated working platforms, narrow spaces, and circular welding paths requiring robotic arms with more than 6 degrees of freedom. Additionally, the environment is noisy and workers — mostly foreigners — have a relatively low level of English commands. The paper presents the results of our field observations and interviews conducted with several welders, as well as our robot design recommendations for the next project stage.