Human-robot collaboration (HRC) is a widely studied research topic that investigates how humans and robots can work together and achieve a common goal. Over the past few years, HRC has created exciting new applications for robots that can revolutionize manufacturing and introduce them to entirely different domains such as healthcare and agriculture. It is an interdisciplinary research area comprising robotics, artificial intelligence, design and cognitive sciences.
Industrial applications of human-robot collaboration involve collaborative robots which physically interact with humans in shared workspaces to complete tasks such as collaborative manipulation or object handovers. However, in industry to date, HRC has been adopted at a slower pace than expected as collaborative robots need to be safe for interaction with humans. At the same time, they need to be easily programmed by non-experts and to operate in an intelligent and adaptive way.
In this book we present some of the latest state-of-the-art advances in the area of human-robot collaboration, aiming at future industrial applications. The book will be useful for advanced students, researchers, engineers, developers and entrepreneurs interested in human-robot collaboration research and technologies.